Abstract:
The soda lakes of Kenya provide an extreme environment where diverse groups of microorganisms thrive. They are
characterized by great variation in temperature, halophillic and alkaliphilic- extreme conditions. Lake Sonnachi has
been the study site for this research. The study sort to isolate, characterize and identify fungi, screen for potential
exo-enzymes and secondary metabolites production that may be of industrial application.Malt extract agar was
used for the isolation of fungi and six (6) isolates were recovered. Inhibition zones were used to measure the
enzymatic and antimicrobial activity of the isolates. GC-MC analysis was done on the filtrates extracted from the
fungi to identify secondary metabolites.Molecular characterization of the 18s rDNA was done using fungal primers
was used in this study.Phylogenetic was inferred using neighbor- joining method. The fungal isolates were alighned
diferrent genera, Acrimonies sp., Scopulariopsis sp, Verticilium sp. Fusarium sp and Paecilomyces sp. The fungal
isolates produce different types of enzymes (cellulases, proteases, pectinases and lipases) and metabolites (acids,
ketones, quinones, alcohols, esters etc). A phylogenetic tree of fungal isolates has been constructed using the
neighbor- joining method showing the evolutionary relationship of the isolates with other kwon
fungi.Antimicrobial assay showed that most of the fungal isolates produced inhibition zones ranging from 0.1 to
4mm, an indication of presence of compounds with antimicrobial activity against most of the test organisms, E.coli,
B. subtilis, S.aureas etc, used in this study. Results indicate that Lake Sonachi, a soda lake has fungal species that
are capable of producing enzymes and metabolites with antimicrobial activity.