Screening for ipase activity in Humicola alopallonella isolated from Avicennia alba

Abstract

Recently, lipase enzyme has received overwhelming attention from many researchers due to its ability to catalyze the hydrolysis of triacylglycerol into free fatty acids and glycerol. Besides, lipase also significantly transforms lipase's residues into useful products for industrial usage. However, there are few studies reported on marine fungi which can produce lipase enzyme. In this study, the ability to produce lipase by Humicola alopallonella previously isolated from Avicennia alba was investigated. The fungal culture was grown in tryptone broth and extracellular lipase was assayed for its activity using cupric acetate-pyridine colometric method. In the optimization of the assay, the effect of amount of enzyme was investigated where 1.0 ml showed the highest hydrolytic activity on olive oil as substrate, compared to 0.2 ml and 2.0 ml.