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    <front>
        <journal-meta>
            <journal-id journal-id-type="issn">0973-7510</journal-id>
            <journal-title-group>
                <journal-title>Journal of Pure and Applied Microbiology</journal-title>
            </journal-title-group>
            <issn pub-type="epub">2581-690X</issn>
            <publisher>
                <publisher-name>DR. M.N. Khan</publisher-name>
            </publisher>
        </journal-meta>
        <article-meta>
            <article-id pub-id-type="doi">10.22207/JPAM.18.4.58</article-id>
            <title-group>
                <article-title>Gut Bacteria Present in Greater Wax Moth (Galleria mellonella L.) Larvae Aid in Degradation of Wax and other Complex Polymers</article-title>
            </title-group>
            <contrib-group>
				
				
				<contrib contrib-type="author">
                    <name>
                        <surname>Das</surname>
                        <given-names>Bonti</given-names>
                    </name>
                    <xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff-1"/>
                </contrib>
				
				<contrib contrib-type="author">
                    <name>
                        <surname>Vardhan</surname>
                        <given-names>Gadi Sri Harsha</given-names>
                    </name>
                    <xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff-1"/>
                </contrib>
				
				
				<contrib contrib-type="author">
                    <name>
                        <surname>Borah</surname>
                        <given-names>Basanta Kumar</given-names>
                    </name>
                    <xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff-1"/>
                </contrib>
				
				
				<contrib contrib-type="author">
                    <name>
                        <surname>Boro</surname>
                        <given-names>Robin Chandra</given-names>
                    </name>
                    <xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff-1"/>
                </contrib>
				
				
				<contrib contrib-type="author">
                    <name>
                        <surname>Sarmah</surname>
                        <given-names>Bidyut Kumar</given-names>
                    </name>
                    <xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff-1"/>
                    <xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff-2"/>
                </contrib>
				
				
				<contrib contrib-type="author">
                    <name>
                        <surname>Baruah</surname>
                        <given-names>Aiswarya</given-names>
                    </name>
                    <xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff-1"/>
                </contrib>
				
				<contrib contrib-type="author">
                    <name>
                        <surname>Deka</surname>
                        <given-names>Mukul Kumar</given-names>
                    </name>
                    <xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff-3"/>
                </contrib>
				
				<contrib contrib-type="author">
                    <name>
                        <surname>Das</surname>
                        <given-names>Priyanka</given-names>
                    </name>
                    <xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff-4"/>
                </contrib>
				
			
			</contrib-group>
			
			
          <aff id="aff-1">Department of Agricultural Biotechnology, Assam Agricultural University, Jorhat, Assam, India.</aff>
          <aff id="aff-2">Director, DBT-Assam Agricultural University Centre, Assam Agricultural University, Jorhat, Assam, India.</aff>
          <aff id="aff-3">Department of Entomology, Assam Agricultural University, Jorhat, Assam, India.</aff>
          <aff id="aff-4">Department of Bio &#38; Agricultural Chemistry, Assam Agricultural University, Jorhat, Assam, India.</aff>

			 
			 			
			
            <pub-date publication-format="electronic" date-type="pub" iso-8601-date="2024-11-27">
                <day>27</day>
				<month>11</month>
                <year>2024</year>
            </pub-date>
            <volume>18</volume>
            <issue>4</issue>
            <fpage>2875</fpage>
            <lpage>2884</lpage>
            <permissions>
                <copyright-statement>Copyright &#x00A9; 2024 The Author(s)</copyright-statement>
                <copyright-year>2024</copyright-year>
                <license license-type="open-access"
                    xlink:href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">
                    <license-p>This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License which permits unrestricted use, sharing, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.<uri 
					xlink:href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"
                            >https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/</uri></license-p>
                </license>
            </permissions>
            <self-uri xlink:href="https://microbiologyjournal.org/gut-bacteria-present-in-greater-wax-moth-galleria-mellonella-l-larvae-aid-in-degradation-of-wax-and-other-complex-polymers/"/>
            <abstract>
                <p>Greater wax moth (GWM), Galleria mellonella (Lepidoptera: Pyralidae), is a destructive pest of honeybee hives. They lay eggs in the bee hives; and the hatched larvae feed on beeswax. The unique ability of GWM to digest the beeswax that contains ethene (CH2=CH2) bond has attracted attention because the same bond is also present in plastic polymers. Polymer-digesting ability, being a very uncommon among animals, we suspected a assistive role of gut bacteria of the insect in the process. The present study aimed to isolate and characterize potential polymer-degrading bacteria from GWM gut, following a culture-dependent approach, and to characterize them morphologically, biochemically, and with 16S rDNA sequences. We also intended to study polymer-degrading abilities of those bacteria, and check the presence of esterase, one of the most potent enzymes involved in plastic polymer degradation, using tributyrin agar test. We found nine bacterial isolates from GMW gut. Out of them, six showed positive results for plastic degradation to varying extents (19.3-31.2%), after 30 days of co-culture with plastic sheets. The esterase enzyme was found to be present in all of them in a qualitative test. Through 16S rDNA sequencing, four isolates were identified as gram-negative Serratia marcescens strains, one as gram-negative Ralstonia pickettii and one as gram-positive Bacillus cereus, some of which are known potential polymer degraders. Therefore, our hypothesis of involvement of gut bacteria in the digestion of polymers by Greater wax moth larvae was perhaps correct. There is possibility of exploiting the bacterial isolates for plastic-pollution remediation; after deeper and further experimentation.</p>
		</abstract>
		<kwd-group>
        <title>Keywords</title>
        <kwd>Greater Wax Moth</kwd>
        <kwd>Galleria mellonella</kwd>
        <kwd>Polymer-degradation</kwd>
        <kwd>Gut Bacteria</kwd>
        <kwd>16S rDNA Sequence</kwd>
		</kwd-group>
</article-meta>
</front>
</article>
