Question

The role of bacteria in retting of fibres is the hydrolysis of
A. The cellulose of cell walls of the fibres
B. The lignin of the secondary wall
C. Living contents of the cell
D. Pectic substances that bind cells together

Answer 1

Hint: Retting is a way of dissolving the cellular tissues and pectins covering bast-fibre bundles using the action of microorganisms and moisture on plants, thereby promoting the isolation of the fibre from the stem.

Complete Answer:
- Retting is the method of extracting the incorporated fibre by immersion in retting water from the flax stem. Naturally, water retention involves complex enzyme activity of microbes that contributes to the hydrolysis of pectic compounds that bind the cells together.
- In retting, microbes are used to extract fibres of bast. Through the aid of bacteria, the soft tissues are separated from the fibre plant. When the machines remove the commodity from the factory, the hard fibres are collected by decortication and the soft fibres by ginning methods.
- The retting is carried out by some varieties of bacteria that break down the middle lamella pectic complex of the flax plant, first separating the fibre bundles from each other and from the cortex and then breaking them into fibres lengthwise.

Additional Information:
Microscopic, single-celled species that live in complex habitats are bacteria. In the soil, the ocean, and within the human gut, these species will exist. Bacteria are known as prokaryotes, single-celled species that lack a nucleus with a basic internal structure and contain DNA that either floats freely in a twisted, thread-like mass called the nucleoid, or in separate, spherical parts called plasmids.

So the correct option is D, Pectic substances that bind cells together.

Note: A few of the retting agents include Achromobacter parvulus, Clostridium beijerinckii, Saprogenes, Saccharoacetoperbutylicum, Perenne, and Pseudomonas aeruginosa and its chromogenic variety.