In recent years there has been a renewed interest in solid-state fermentation (SSF) processes for the production of bioactive compounds. While efforts continue largely to exploit filamentous fungi and yeasts for the production of various enzymes, attempts have also been made to explore possibilities of using bacterial strains in SSF systems (Pandey et al., 2000). Enzyme production by SSF using bacterial spp. has been reported for many enzymes such as xylanase (Gessesse and Mamo, 1999) and amylase (Babu and Satyanarayana, 1995) but reports on pectinase production by SSF using bacterial spp. are lacking in the literature. The use of SSF for the production of enzymes mainly from fungi may be due to the.
