Cellulase end xylanase activity of fungi in a collection isolated from the southern Caucasus

Fungi, comprising about 4000 cultures, were collected from different climatic zones of the southern Caucasus. Almost all cultures in the collection showed a high potential for degrading basic plant biopolymers such as cellulose and hemicellulose. Cultures of Penicillium canescens possessing comparatively low cellulase activity in their wild type were treated with ultraviolet light, which produced genetically stable mutants. Few of them had high xylanase and no cellulase activities. More than 6% of all cultures in the collection were thermophiles and, from these, 56 cultures with the highest cellulase and xylanase activity were selected. It was shown that under two different thermophilic growth conditions, 40 and 48°C, Allescheria terrestris formed two sets of endoglucanases and endoxylanases with different thermal stabilities. It was also shown that when cultivated on straw, Allescheria terrestris grows primarily in its internal part for an extended period of time.