Isolation, morphological and molecular characterization of phytate-hydrolysing fungi by 18S rDNA sequence analysis

Phytate is the primary storage form of phosphate in plants. Monogastric animals like poultry, pigs and fishes have very low or no phytase activities in their digestive tracts therefore, are incapable to efficiently utilize phytate phosphorus from the feed. Phytase from microbial sources are supplemented to feedstuff of these to increase the uptake of phytate phosphorus. In the present work efforts were made to isolate and characterize proficient phytase producing fungi from soil. Phytase producing fungi were isolated using phytate specific medium. Fungal isolates were selected according to the...