AUTHOR=Ilangumaran Gayathri , Stratton Glenn , Ravichandran Sridhar , Shukla Pushp S. , Potin Philippe , Asiedu Samuel , Prithiviraj Balakrishnan TITLE=Microbial Degradation of Lobster Shells to Extract Chitin Derivatives for Plant Disease Management JOURNAL=Frontiers in Microbiology VOLUME=8 YEAR=2017 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/microbiology/articles/10.3389/fmicb.2017.00781 DOI=10.3389/fmicb.2017.00781 ISSN=1664-302X ABSTRACT=
Biodegradation of lobster shells by chitinolytic microorganisms are an environment safe approach to utilize lobster processing wastes for chitin derivation. In this study, we report degradation activities of two microbes, “S223” and “S224” isolated from soil samples that had the highest rate of deproteinization, demineralization and chitinolysis among ten microorganisms screened. Isolates S223 and S224 had 27.3 and 103.8 protease units mg-1 protein and 12.3 and 11.2 μg ml-1 of calcium in their samples, respectively, after 1 week of incubation with raw lobster shells. Further, S223 contained 23.8 μg ml-1 of