Morphological and Biochemical Characteristic of Endosymbiont Cellulolytic Bacteria from Gut of Hypothenemus hampei Ferr. And its enzyme activity

Abstract

Hypothenemus hampei Ferr. is one of the most destruction pest in cof fee berry. To control this pest by synthetic insecticide is harmful and damage for environment. A strategy to control H. hampei is by studying its life cycle. The egg stage until adult of H. hampei lives inside cof fee beans and utilize polysaccharides of cof fee beans as source of its metabolism. The result of investigation showed that in gut of H. hampei was found cellulolytic bacteria Isolate 10 (ISH 10) which is suspected as endosymbiont bacteria that helps in the digestive process and metabolism oîH. hampei. Morphological characters of ISH10 colony are circular, flat elevation, edge of entire colony, and the cell shape is rod. ISH 10 was gram positive bacteria which gave positive results in catalase and negative for oxidase test. In addition, ISH 10 is able to ferment some sugars media test such as glucose, sucrose, fructose and mannitol. ISH10 produced positive reaction in simmon citrate and urease test, and ISH 10 unable to reduce nitrate. Based on results, ISH 10 similar to genus Brochothrix. ISH 10 can also produce cellulase with the highest activity of the crude enzyme 0,031 U/ml only in 72 hours of incubation at 30°C against 0,5% CMC in 20 mM acetate buffer pH 5. Further characterization of this cellulase is needed so that it can interfere the digestion oîH. hampei through endosymbiont cellulolytic bacteria by using inhibitor or environmental factor of its cellulase enzyme.