Isolamento e caracterização de actinobactéria de solo e sua capacidade de produção da enzima quitinase

Abstract

In agriculture, it is necessary to use sources of natural products as an alternative to the use of pesticides and chemical compounds to control pests in crops. In this sense, actinobacteria are microorganisms that produce a variety of secondary metabolites with high pharmacological and commercial interest that promote their bioprospecting. Thus, due to the strong worldwide demand for new molecules from microorganisms, this work aimed to isolate and morphologically characterize actinobacteria from soil and evaluate their chitinolytic activity. The actinobacteria were isolated by means of the serial dilution technique followed by plating on spread plate, in Soil Extract culture medium. Thirteen distinct morphological groups were found and they were evaluated for chitinolytic activity through chitin degradation assays. The chitin degradation halo was observed for only four strains, namely “ACT3”, “ACT11”, “ACT14” and “ACT19”. This work allowed the identification of colonies of actinobacteria and the selection of chitin-degrading strains to be used in future research work.