A PRELIMINARY STUDY ON THE OCCURRENCE OF KERATINOPHILIC FUNGI IN SOILS OF BHANDUP PUMPING STATIONS.S. Palkar, S.S. Patole, A.A. Sansare2, S.S. Kadam and A.A. SomjiAbstract The soil on Earth is infused with multiple crucial elements one of which is saprophytes which decompose organic matter. Keratinophilic fungi are one such saprophyte which has the ability to decompose even the hardest substance like keratin, which is otherwise resistant to degradation by most of the other microorganisms. Through biodegradation, they colonise in various keratinous substrates, produce enzyme keratinases, and decompose them into components with lower molecular weight. The present study was carried out with the aim of identifying keratinophilic fungi from the soil samples collected at Bhandup Pumping Station. Its unique location and geographic diversity makes it a potential area to study the distribution of keratinophilic fungi. The isolation technique used is the keratin bait technique in which the baits used were feathers of different birds collected from the study area. A total of four species were isolated from the culture which are Aspergillus spp., Rhizopus spp., Trichophyton spp., and Fusarium spp. The pathogenic keratinolytic fungal species produce extracellular keratinases which have applications in various industries. So, keratinophilic fungi might be pathogenic with regard to keratinized tissues of humans and animals. |