Periodic Appraisal of Cholesterol Degradation by Two Bacteria Isolates from 'Iru' (Fermented Parkia Biglobosa)

This study was carried out to evaluate the incubation period on cholesterol degrading ability of bacteria isolated from 'iru' (fermented Parkia biglobosa seeds). The total bacterial count after culturing 'iru' (Parkia biglobosa) on nutrient agar were 7.30, 8.13, 7.28 and 8.11 respectively. The isolates were identified as Bacillus cereus and Bacillus subtilis. The isolates were screened on a salt agar of 1% cholesterol. Some of the isolates utilized cholesterol and grew well. IRUA and IRUC had the highest growth on the minimal salt cholesterol agar, followed by IRUB. The growth of 2IRUB was very low while IRUD, 2IRUA, 2IRUC, 2IRUD had no growth on the nutrient agar. Bacillus subtilis and Bacillus cereus degraded cholesterol maximally as 59.57mmol/L and 43.51mmol/L respectively. The cholesterol concentration degraded greatly with incubation period showing that there were high activities of the microorganisms and maximum cholesterol degradation was recorded on the 7th day. This study showed that the cholesterol degrading bacteria from Parkia biglobosa are endowed with the capability to degrade cholesterol and are good sources of cholesterol oxidase exploited for potential biomedical and industrial applications.