Characterization of an alkalitolerant Bacillus sp. for production of extracellular proteases

Abstract

Extracellular enzymes are used in many environmental –friendly industrial applications as they are selective and economical. The Bacillus strains are the most important industrial enzyme producers because of their ability to produce and secrete large quantities of enzymes. Enzymes produced by various Bacilli strains are extensively used in several industrial like detergent, leather and food industry etc. A Bacillus species capable of growing at pH 9 procured from MTCC, CSIR-IMTECH was biochemically characterized and investigated for the production of extracellular proteases. Bacillus sp. is a flagellated, rod like, Gram positive bacterium under aerobic conditions. Growth media for Bacillus sp. was optimized and growth was observed in the pH range of 6.5-10 indicating that this bacillus is an alkalitolerant organism, and referred to as alkalitolerant Bacillus sp. in this thesis. Alkalitolerant Bacillus sp. produces protease in late stationary phase of growth and the protease(s) was active under both neutral and alkalitolerant pH condition (~pH 10), with higher activity observed in alkalitolerant conditions. Observation and results obtained in project indicates that alkalitolerant Bacillus sp. is a potential industrial enzyme producer and future work will focus on purification and characterization of the alkaliphilic protease (s).