Isolation and identification of cellulose-degradation bacteria from cattle slurry

Cellulases are the third most widely used group of enzymes obtained from microbial sources. Despite the large number of microorganisms available to degrade cellulose, few bacterial sources can be produced in sufficient quantities to completely hydrolyze cellulose. The present study was undertaken to investigate and identify cellulolytic bacteria found in agriculture waste in a state of anaerobic digestion. For the purposes of the study, bacterial isolates were obtained from three samples of cattle slurry: (1) fresh, prior to treatment; (2) after one month of anaerobic digestion; (3) after six months of anaerobic digestion. We employed the Sanger Sequencing Method of detection for plasmid isolation from bacterial isolates, to identify bacteria up to the genus level, using the 16 S rRNA PCR technique. Of all the isolates, the majority of the bacteria identified belonged in order of prevalence to: (1) the genera Bacteroides, Clostridium, Enterobacter, Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium; (2) the genera Bacteroides, Bifidobacterium, Klebsiella, Enterococcus and Staphylococcus; (3) the genera Clostridium, Lactobacillus, Bifidobacterium, Staphylococcus and Campylabacter. The study showed the bacterial community’s composition differed across all three samples, and depended on the times at which the samples were taken prior or after treatment. Furthermore, future work is indicated to assess the anaerobic digestion potential of these bacteria isolates by measuring produced methane gas. This can be done after investigating and identifying bacterial isolates up to the species level, using Pyrosequencing.