Thermophlic Lypolytic Bacteria From Yellowstone National Park with Potential for Biodiesel Production

Lipases (EC 3.1.1.3) are hydrolytic enzymes with a broad use in biocatalysis due to their versatility for industrial applications, their thermostability, relatively low cost and need for added cofactors. In the last two decades, lipases have gained interest because of their potential use among others in the food, detergent, and biodiesel industries. To date, bacterial isolates from the Yellowstone National Park have been relatively poorly studied for lipase production. In this work, soil samples from mushroom, bath and octopus springs were collected and separately enriched at 65⁰C in a basal medium (pH 7) supplemented with 1% (v/v) of tributyrine oil, tributyrine oil emulsion, soybean oil or waste cooking oil. The primary screening for lipase production was carried out using olive oil emulsion agar plates followed by rhodamine B agar plate techniques. Selected isolates were studied for extracellulase lipase production under submerged fermentative conditions using various nutritional and environmental parameters. The present investigation identifies lipolytic bacterial cultures producing highly thermostable extracellular lipases with properties potentially useful in biodiesel production.