Solid-state fermentation of wood residues by Streptomyces griseus B1, a soil isolate, and solubilization of lignins

The actinomycete strain Streptomyces griseus B-1 isolated from soil, when grown on cellulose powder as submerged culture produced high levels of all the three components i.e. filter paper lyase (FPase), CMCellulase and beta-glucosidase of the cellulolytic enzyme system. FP activity and CMCellulase were present only extracellularly, while beta-glucosidase was both intra- and extra-cellular. It produced highest FPase activity when grown on hardwood powder under submerged culture. It was unable to use lignin monomers (ferulic acid, vanillic acid and syringic acid) as carbon source. While growing on hardwood and softwood powders under solid-state conditions, it depleted them of cellulose (36.3 in the case of softwood and 14.4 in the case of hardwood). It also caused partial loss of lignin content in both the substrates by solubilizing them. These solubilized lignins could be recovered as acid precipitable polymeric lignins (APPL) from extracts of wood powders upon acidification. Extracts of inoculated wood powders yielded higher amounts of APPL than uninoculated controls. Also, the APPLs from Streptomyces-treated wood powders differed from control APPLs in their molecular weight distribution, as observed from their elution pattern using Sephadex G-100.