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• Article
• Open Access
• Published: 20 March 2020

Pectinolytic Bacterial Consortia Reduce Jute Retting Period and Improve Fibre Quality

• Rajnee Hasan1 na1,
• Nasima Aktar1 na1,
• Shah Md. Tamim Kabir1,
• Ummay Honi1,
• Abdul Halim2,3,
• Rahin Islam4,
• Muhammad Delwar Hossain Sarker1,
• Md. Samiul Haque1,3,
• Md. Monjurul Alam1,3 &
• Md. Shahidul Islam  ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-4344-24291,3 

volume 10, Article number: 5174 (2020) Cite this article

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Subjects

• Applied microbiology
• Environmental biotechnology

AbstractJute fibre is the second most important fibre next to cotton. It is obtained from the bark of plant through microbial retting process. Here we report optimized microbial retting protocol that can lower retting period and produce high fibre quality. A total of 451 bacterial colonies have been isolated from five jute retting water samples in Bangladesh. Higher pectinolytic bacterial isolates were predominant in the later stage of jute retting. Out of these, 168 isolates have been screened by both semi-quantitative and quantitative pectinase, xylanase and cellulase enzyme assay. Among them, 144 isolates have been selected on the basis of extra cellular enzyme activity of these three enzymes. 16?s ribosomal gene sequencing analysis identified 2 phyla- Firmicutis (80.55%) and Proteobacteria (19.45%). To check the synergistic and antagonistic effect 10 selected isolates were tested in 167 different combinations. Three best combinations were identified that lowered retting period from 18–21 days to 10 days producing high quality fibre in both laboratory and field trial. This improved retting technology can be adopted in industrial scale for the production of quality jute fibre in a controlled condition in reduced water quantity without polluting the environment.