European Journal of Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Sciences

THE STATE OF BEING ALIVE AND SEPARATION OF BACTERIAL STRAIN WITH HIGH CELLULOSE ACTIVITY FROM LEFT OVER MULBERRY PULP EXCRETED BY SILKWORMS, BOMBYX MORI L.

Salil Raha*, Somdip Majumdar, Rituparna Banerjee, Susanta Chattopadhyay, Gopinath Baur

ABSTRACT

The theme of this work revolves around the utilization of beneficial bacterial strains in biotechnological application chiefly related to agri-waste degradation process as investigated. These bacterial strains are obtained from animal wastes like excreta serves as the material for such studies. The excreta of the popular mulberry silkworm, Bombyx mori L. may serve as the instant source of these bacterial strains proving immense research scopes learning to remarkable discovery of the betterment of human life. Silkworm excrement is the collective name of the left over mulberry pulp and excreta produced by the silkworm during larval periods. It is a type of semisolid substance containing chiefly leaf juices, cellulose and protein. The cellulose content of silkworm excrement has been recorded high-up as 20%. It is well established earlier that cellulolytic functional bacteria are responsible to accelerate the biodegradable process of cellulose and for which it was assumed to be helpful during conversion process of agricultural wastes. Therefore, stepwise studies are imperative, for achieving an end on the confirmation about the procedures of isolation, identification of high efficiency of cellulose degrading bacteria, their selective culture suitability, the process of cellulose degradation, screening, sorting and application trials. Till date, experimental work progress and initial encouraging results related to separation of bacterial forms and distinctness of their colonies from other colonies of microorganisms, appearance, texture, identification, basic biochemical tests, standardization of culture media etc. has been tested and two useful strains have been verified as Bacillus and Pseudomonas sp. among collected samples. Huge microbial growth has been observed in each sample against excreta of bivoltine and multivoltine silkworm breeds. The growth load have reached near about 1X108 cfu/ml of sample in each case using non-selective culture media at this initial study. So, relevant data collection about these assessable microbial cells present in the silkworm excrement is anticipated with this for the safe use in the degradation process of agro-wastes comprising of mostly cellulose.

Keywords: Agricultural Waste, Silkworm Excrement, Cellulose Converting Bacteria, Cultural Practice and Separation.