Isolation and Screening of Protease Producing Bacteria from Local Environment for Detergent Additive

Abstract

Abstract:Proteases are among the most important hydrolytic enzymes that found in every organism to undertake important physiological functions. They are multipurpose enzymes used in various industries such as detergent, silver recovery, food, pharmaceutical, leather, and textile industries. This work aimed to produce protease from indigenous microbes for use as detergent additive. Isolation of protease producer was undertaken using skim milk agar medium. Crude enzyme was characterized in terms of wash and stain removal tests. A total of 188 protease positive bacteria were isolated from seven samples collected from Arba Minch town. Out of 36 alkaline protease producing bacteria, one isolate designated as Bacillus sp. Cab44 was selected. The optimum activity was reached at pH 9 and 50°C. The enzyme was stable in the pH range of 7 to 10. It retained 75%, 86% and 72% activity after one hr pre-incubation at 50°C, in 15% H 2 O 2 and 0.3% commercial detergent respectively. . It removed stains of blood and egg yolk on cotton cloth at pH 9, 40°C, 5.07 U/ml in 30-40 min. These properties suggest that protease from Bacillus sp. Cab44 could find potential application in detergent industries as good candidate of additive in detergent formulation which have economic implication.

Microbial Proteases Applications

“…Both solid substrate and submerged fermentation are exploited for the cost-effective production of microbial proteases. The easily available substrate wheat bran is found to be more promising for protease production in solid substrate fermentation (Priya et al, 2016; Hamza, 2017a,b). Other cheap sources of substrate, such as cow dung, agro-industrial waste, groundnuts, and wheat bran can be remarkable for the production of proteases (Krishnaveni et al, 2012; Verma and Agarwa, 2016; Hamza, 2017a).…”