IJFANS International Journal of Food and Nutritional Sciences

ISSN PRINT 2319 1775 Online 2320-7876

Isolation and Identification of Keratinophilic fungal biota from different soil samples of Agricultural lands of Kota city of Rajasthan, India

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Pallavi Sharma, Shweta Gupta, Neha Chauhan and Aadisha Soni
» doi: 10.48047/ijfans/v12/i1/77

Abstract

Keratinophilic fungi are a group of ecologically important fungi that cycle one of the most abundant and highly stable animal proteins on earth. The biological function of keratinolytic fungi in the soil is the degradation of keratinized materials. Due to decomposition of keratin substances decay, these fungi are important in soil ecosystem. The study was conducted to analyse the isolation and identification of keratinophilic fungi from various soil samples. The soils samples were obtained from agricultural land of Kota (Rajasthan) which were rich in pathogenic keratinophilic fungi including dermatophytes. The samples were analysed in laboratory using a spread hair bait technique. The isolated 7 genera and 10 species of different fungi from twenty soil samples belongs to Aspergillus niger, Aspergillus flavus, Trichophyton rubrum, Microsporum gypseum, Microsporum canis, Rhizopus arrhizus, Pencillium citrinium, Chrysosporium tropicum, Fusarium solani, Aspergillus fumigatus. Aspergillus flavus was found to be the most predominant fungi in alkaline pH and salinity environment and Trichophyton rubrum was the second predominant fungi. The present study concluded that the agricultural soil that consists of keratin as substrate were very rich in the population of keratinophilic fungi. The fungi isolated in our study belongs to both keratinophilic and dermatophytes group. The study needed to be extended upto the enzymatic level in further assignments.

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