MICROBIAL ASSIMILATION AND ENZYMATIC DEPOLYMERIZATION OF NATURAL RUBBER BY MUCOR SP. ISOLATED FROM RUBBER LATEX CONTAMINATED SOIL

Abstract

Rubber products are widely used in our daily life these products are mainly made up of Natural rubber (NR) which is obtained from the latex of tree Hevea brasiliensis commonly called Rubber tree. After usage of these natural rubber products the disposal of these products are the world wide solid waste problem. Microbial degradation of products can be solution for this problem. In current work different fungal species were isolated from the soil were natural rubber sample was dumped. In all the isolated fungi Mucor sp., effectively degraded rubber. Further it was studied that laccase and manganese peroxidase enzyme produce by Mucor sp., was responsible for rubber degradation.