An investigation was carried out using rice straw as a low-cost substrate to study the optimization of xylanase production using a newly identified endospore-forming bacterium, Bacillus altitudinis RS3025. The highest xylanase activity was achieved using 2% rice straw (pretreated with 2% NaOH at 100 °C) at pH 7.0, 37 °C temperature, and with 72-h incubation time. Under the optimized conditions, xylanase activity reached 2518.51 U/mL, which was 11.56-fold higher than the activity under the initial conditions using untreated rice straw as substrate. Enzymatic hydrolysis of the rice straw using crude xylanase of B. altitudinis RS3025 demonstrated the hydrolyzation efficiency of the rice straw waste, especially alkaline rice straw. The highest level of released reducing sugars was 149.78 mg/g substrate. The study demonstrated the successful utilization of rice straw waste for high-level xylanase production using B. altitudinis RS3025 and reducing sugar production using low-cost crude enzyme, which has the advantages of reducing the processing cost and environmental concerns associated with rice straw waste management.
Keywords: Bacillus altitudinis; Enzymatic hydrolysis; Enzyme production; Rice straw; Xylanase.
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