hi, we are using CMC agar (carboxy methyl cellulose agar) for isolation and to identify the cellulolytic pattern, congo red is used.

Bastian´s answer is very good. I would just add that the enrichment step (the incubation in liquid media) will favor the best competitors and may reduce the diversity of isolates.

you can use mandels, basal medium, or Carboxy Methyl cellulose agar medium (for screening of cellulolytic microorganims).

For isolation of cellulolytic bacteria you can prepare a media with replacement of carbon source as cellulose, remove all other carbon sources from the components and cellulose should be the only carbon source, other components of the media will be unchanged. Another media which is commonly used is omliamsky media for cellulolytic organisms.

You can use (carboxy methyl cellulose agar) for isolation the cellulolytic pattern.

I would rather use a media which is specific to grow cellulose degrading bacteria. I used a starch containing media for my work on selecting a starch degrading bacteria. So adding cellulose to the medium and, doing a test to confirm whether the developing microorganism is cellulose degrading or not.

Look at this simple paper :

International Journal of MicrobiologyVolume 2012 (2012), Article ID 578925, 5 pagesdoi:10.1155/2012/578925

Research Article

Isolation of Cellulose-Degrading Bacteria and Determination of Their Cellulolytic Potential

Pratima Gupta,1 Kalpana Samant,2 and Avinash Sahu2

1Department of Biotechnology, National Institute of Technology, Raipur 492 010, India2Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, New Delhi 110016, India

Received 29 July 2011; Accepted 11 October 2011

Academic Editor: Todd R. Callaway

Copyright © 2012 Pratima Gupta et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

Eight isolates of cellulose-degrading bacteria (CDB) were isolated from four different invertebrates (termite, snail, caterpillar, and bookworm) by enriching the basal culture medium with filter paper as substrate for cellulose degradation. To indicate the cellulase activity of the organisms, diameter of clear zone around the colony and hydrolytic value on cellulose Congo Red agar media were measured. CDB 8 and CDB 10 exhibited the maximum zone of clearance around the colony with diameter of 45 and 50 mm and with the hydrolytic value of 9 and 9.8, respectively. The enzyme assays for two enzymes, filter paper cellulase (FPC), and cellulase (endoglucanase), were examined by methods recommended by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC). The extracellular cellulase activities ranged from 0.012 to 0.196 IU/mL for FPC and 0.162 to 0.400 IU/mL for endoglucanase assay. All the cultures were also further tested for their capacity to degrade filter paper by gravimetric method. The maximum filter paper degradation percentage was estimated to be 65.7 for CDB 8. Selected bacterial isolates CDB 2, 7, 8, and 10 were co-cultured with Saccharomyces cerevisiae for simultaneous saccharification and fermentation. Ethanol production was positively tested after five days of incubation with acidified potassium dichromate.

Hi, to you and all others who uses this wonderful platform: Instead of asking this easy question on this wonderful platform and waste the time of all the above people, you could have googeled the question and read immediately a few of the hundreds of papers published during the last 60 plus years on isolations of various types of cellulolytic bacteria.

In short: Be reasonable. Keep this wonderful platform for real problems not easy to answer by a fast simple search..

Hi, I am the author of the following paper.

Nili and Brooker. Lett Appl Microbiol. 1995 Aug;21(2):69-74.

I developed this medium to study amino acid metabolism in anaerobic bacteria, but it also works for the study of carbohydrate metabolism or isolation of cellulolytic bacteria. You just need to replace the carbohydrate source with your choice of a cellulose material. I used pure cotton as a carbohydrate source to isolate a highly cellulolytic bacterium from the ruminal contents of moose.