Morphological, biochemical and molecular characterization of fibre degrading bacterial isolates from buffalo rumen

The present study was conducted to characterize the fibrolytic bacterial strains isolated from the rumen liquor of permanently fistulated adult Murrah buffaloes kept on high fibre diet (Roughage: Concentrate: 60: 40). Among the forty two bacterial strains isolated from rumen liquor twelve most potent fibre degrading isolates were selected on the basis of in vitro true dry matter digestibility study on pure neutral detergent fibre isolated from wheat straw and were characterized based on their morphology, ability to use sugars utilization pattern, biochemical properties and molecular chracteristics. All the isolates were found to be Gram positive in nature and cocci in shape except one isolate NB-11 which was coccobacilli in shape. Their size ranges from 0.7 to 1.2 μm. Similarly, these were found to be sugar fermenter other than starch and glycerol. All the isolates were found to be non-motile in nature and were unable to grow in presence of oxygen. All the twelve isolates showed negative gelatin liquefaction test whereas, positive hydrogen sulphide production test. Gas production was noticed in all isolates except in isolates NB-4 and NB-5. Molecular characterization of the six most potent fibrolytic isolates was done by amplification and sequencing of extracted genomic DNA which confirmed their resemblance to the genus Ruminococcus.