Isolation of Corncob Xylan-Degrading Fungi and Its Application in Xylobiose Production

Abstract

In the present study, a potential corncob xylan degradation fungi was isolated and screened from soil to produce xylanase, and was identified as Fusarium oxysporum. The production of xylanase by F. oxysporum under solid state fermentation using corncob powder as the solid substrate reached the maximum xylanase activity when using particle size of substrate of 60 mesh, water content ratio of 2 mL/g substrate, incubation temperature of 30°C, initial pH of 6.0, size of inoculum of 5x107spore/3 g substrate, and incubation time of 2 days. The xylanase activity increased about 4 times up to 7.92 U/mL after optimization. The potential application of xylanase of F. oxysporum in hydrolyzing alkali-treated corncob xylan to produce xylobiose was also demonstrated. Hydrolysis of 6% of corncob xylan using 100 U/g substrate of enzyme loading under optimum pH and temperature conditions (pH 5.5 and 50°C, respectively) achieved the yield of xylobiose up to 28.7 g/100 g pure xylan after 12 h incubation. The purification of hydrolysate could retain 91.1% of xylobiose. Further separation step using activated charcoal column chromatography was able to get a pure xylobiose, but could only recover 59.3% of xylobiose.