DETERMINATION OF PROTEOLYTIC ACTIVITY OF THE MARINE FUNGUS Trichoderma lixii

• Grant number: 22/06203-0
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: March 01, 2023
• End date: December 31, 2023
• Field of knowledge: Health Sciences - Pharmacy
• Principal Investigator: Rosemeire Cristina Linhari Rodrigues Pietro
• Grantee: Sarah Santana Sanchez
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Ciências Farmacêuticas (FCFAR). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de Araraquara. Araraquara , SP, Brazil

Abstract

Due to its wide versatility, the use of proteolytic enzymes has been expanding more in pharmaceutical, food, biotechnology and textile market, moving millions of dollars a year. Fungal enzymes represent a promising resource, as in addition to accelerating a chemical or biological reaction and being able to be decisive cofactors for a process to occur, their production occurs in greater abundance and more quickly compared to bacterial and synthetic ones, managing to supply in less time the demand. The advantage of using fungal proteases is the wide pH range in which they can be applied, depending on the fungus species, and can be used in several areas such as pharmacological and biotechnological environmental. The project has the innovative objective of determining the proteolytic activity in different pH ranges of the marine filamentous fungus Trichoderma lixii 5A-7, which is part of the FCF/Araraquara BiotecFar Laboratory and has been studied by the group. There are no reports in the literature on the proteases of this fungus and preliminary studies suggests the production capacity of these enzymes, which draws attention because the characteristics of this microorganism are different, due to the habitat from which it was isolated. The fungus T. lixii 5A-7 will be evaluated for the production of specific activities of acid, neutral and alkaline proteases in submerged fermentation in media described in the literature. After the fermentation, there will be separation by vacuum filtration of the extract and biomass formed. The kinetics of production of extracellular proteases will be analyzed to determine the best production condition. Still, the results will be evaluated by the cup-plate method, where the fungal proteolytic activity is represented by the appearance of a halo around the wells.