Microbial Consortia Preparation for Amylase, Protease, Gelatinase and Lipase Production from Isolates Obtained from Organic Kitchen Waste

Abstract

Households, restaurants, canteens, and hotel wastes constitute kitchen waste. Every day our growing cities generate more and more waste, which is overloading our municipal systems. The main aim of the present work was to prepare a microbial consortium that can effectively and rapidly bring about the degradation of kitchen wastes that can be used in agricultural soils. More than 100 different bacterial isolates were obtained from various kitchen waste dumping areas. The bacterial isolates were studied to produce enzymes like amylase, gelatinase, lipase, and protease on respective media plates. The best 20 isolates were subjected to enzyme quantification. The isolates showing maximum production for all four enzymes were selected for consortia preparation. The consortia of isolates were prepared by permutation combinations. Amongst all consortia prepared consortium No. 7 showed maximum enzymatic potential. The bacterial isolates in the best consortium (No. 7) were further characterized and identified as KW104 Serratia marcescens, KW37 Micrococcus luteus, KW128 Brevindimonas mediterranea, KW91 Bacillus tequilensis, and KW97 Exiguobacterium mexicanum. This consortium showed rapid degradation of waste as compared to others in 15 days duration of time showing good potential for compost formation when applied to plant growth.

Keywords

• amylase, protease, lipase, gelatinase, kitchen waste, microbial consortium