Characterization of fibrolytic and lipid accumulating fungi isolated from fresh cattle feces.

To characterize coprophilous fungi for converting lignocellulose into lipids, four fungal strains utilizing cellulose microcrystalline and xylan were screened. The fungi were identified as Cladosporium sp. F1, Circinella sp. F6, Mycocladus sp. F49, and Byssochlamys sp. F52 based on the ITS1-5.8S-ITS2 sequence similarity. The strain F52 accumulated 336.0 mg/L reducing sugars on cottonseed shells treated with ethanol. The combination of F1+F52 increased the reducing sugar accumulating rates. However, the activities of avicelase and xylanase were not correlated with the reducing sugars accumulated by the test strains. Strains F6 and F52 produced higher cellular lipids (above 530.7 mg/L) than other strains. However, the strain F52 could produce more cellular lipids with xylose and mannose as the sole carbon sources. The results indicated that the reducing sugar contents accumulated by the different strains were influenced by the fungal taxa and ligocellulosic types. With fibrolytic and lipid accumulating activities, diverse fungi harboring in herbivore feces need to be further characterized.