Lignin-Degrading Abilities of Novel Autochthonous Fungal Isolates F13 and F28.

The aim of this research is to isolate and identify fungi with high lignin-degrading abilities that are autochthonous to southern Serbian region. Two novel fungal isolates identified as F13 and F28 were selected to assess their ligninolytic enzyme activities and the efficiency of lignin removal from beech wood sawdust. Obtained results show that both isolates are good sources of industrially valuable enzymes with a potential for application in various biotechnological and industrial processes. Both isolates showed laccase, manganese-dependent peroxidase, and versatile peroxidase activities, while only F28 had lignin peroxidase activity. This is the first record of the ability of species to produce lignin peroxidase. F13 showed higher laccase activity than F28, while F28 had higher manganese peroxidase activity. Also, F13 exhibited much higher laccase activity under submerged cultivation conditions than solid-state cultivation conditions, which is rare for fungi. This is important for industrial processes since the submerged fermentation is a dominant technique in industry. The test of the efficiency of lignin removal showed that both isolates are efficient lignin decomposers. After five weeks of incubation on beech wood sawdust, the total lignin losses were 33.84% with F13 and 28.8% with F28.