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Obligate anaerobic fungi are found in gastrointestinal trace of
the ruminants. It had been reported that five genera and
sixteen species were isolated from many ruminants before
1996. The obligate anaerobic fungi have been known to
possess diverse plant polysaccharide hydrolase activities. The
Neocallimastix cellulases have been shown to form a large
multienzyme complex, which exhibits very high activity against
crystalline cellulose. In this study, I isolated seven
isolates of obligate anaerobic fungi from the feces of llama,
water baffulo and Taiwan native animals Formosan Sika deer and
Taiwan yellow bos. The seven isolates were cultured on modified
basal medium with filter paper as the carbon source.
According to their morphological characters, D-21, X-26,
X-34, Y-15, Y-24 and L-87 were classified to genera
Neocallimastix, and X-55 isolate was similar to genera
Caecomyces. In my study, I have also compared
cellulolytic ability with the crude extracts of the six
Neocallimastix isolates and the commercial cellulases of
Trichoderma viride (B.M.) and Aspergillus niger (Sigma). The
activity of the complete cellulase complex was measured by
using Whatman No. 1 filter paper. This assay is recommended
by the Commission on Biotechnology (IUPAC) for
measurement of activity of total cellulase or true cellulase.
The cellulolytic activity of N. frontalis X-26 was 0.02 IU/mg
which of T. viride and A. niger were 0.035 and 0.015 IU/mg.
The endoglucanase activity of N. frontalis D-21 was 0.460
IU/mg which of T. viride and A. niger were 0.545 and 0.148
IU/ mg protein. This result suggests the anaerobic fungi
exhibits very high activity against cellulose. I report here
the cellulolytic activites of six isolates and provide that
obligate anaerobic fungi can also be found in
gastrointestinal trace of the Taiwan native ruminants - Formosan
Sika deer and Taiwan yellow bos.
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