Abstract

ANTIBACTERIAL POTENTIAL OF CHITIN AND CHITIN-BASED DERIVATIVES AGAINST PATHOGENIC AND DRUG-RESISTANT BACTERIAL STRAINS

Junaid Alam* and Abhishek Mathur

ABSTRACT

Crustacean’s shells constitute the traditional and current commercial source of Chitin. Chitin and its derivatives as a potential resource as well as multiple functional substrates have generate attractive interest in various fields such as biomedical, pharmaceutical, food and environmental industries. In the present investigation, chitinous wastes were collected from the fresh water areas of Dehradun and Rishikesh of Uttarakhand State. The bacterium, Bacillus sp. isolated from soil produces chitinase enzyme responsible for degradation of chitin obtained from chitinous wastes. Further the chitinases enzyme was utilized to degrade the chitinous wastes into Chito – oligosaccharides. The chitin active molecule present in the chitinous waste at another stage was deacetylated to chitosan. Further the antibacterial activity of chitinases, chitin, chitosan and chito-oligosaccharides was determined in vitro by well diffusion method. The enzyme purified showed potent activity against the bacterial cultures but no activity was observed against the fungal test cultures. Amongst the test bacterial cultures the chitinase showed maximum inhibition against Micrococcus luteus (diameter of zone of inhibition: 21 mm) followed by multi-drug resistant Staphylococcus aureus (diameter of zone of inhibition: 20 mm) and Salmonella abony (diameter of zone of inhibition: 17 mm). Further, chitin, chitosan and chito-oligosaccharide were subjected to antimicrobial activity against the similar strains and the results were found to be very satisfactory as the chitin and chitin-based derivatives were equally antimicrobial in nature.

Keywords: Chitin, crustaceans, chito-oligosaccharides, chitosan, chitinases, antibacterial activity.