ABSTRACT
Cellulose is the most abounding biopolymer in the world and there is a great interest in using this material as a substrate for various applications and it is the most important renewable resource for bioconversion. Therefore, it is necessary to screen the cellulolytic bioorganisms. In this context, actinobacteria are one of the most efficient prokaryotes, economically and biotechnologically, for their production of about half of the discovered bioactive secondary metabolites and they can metabolize many different compounds. Therefore, the present study was carried out to isolate and screen cellulase enzyme producing marine actinobacterial strains from the sediments of the Havelock island, the Andamans. Totally, 19 morphologically distinct actinobacterial strains were isolated and subjected to cellulose degradation assay. Out of the 19, four strains were found to possess good cellulose degradation activity and the strain MHA15 alone produced higher amount of cellulase enzyme (14.379 1U/ml) than the others. Taxonomical study of the strain MHA15 revealed that it belongs to the genus Actinoalloteichus and the molecular characters showed distinct difference in its phylogenetic relationship (8.4%) with A. cyanogriseus.
