Production of Bacterial Acid Protease by Submerged Fermentation using Aeromonascaviae from Dairy Effluent

Proteases are proteolytic enzymes having wide range of applications in various industries such as pharmaceutical industry, textile, leather, food industry and medicine. Microorganisms are considered potentially to be the most suitable sources of acid protease. Bacterial acid proteases are characterized by their maximum activity atacidicpH4.7. As a commodity product, pressure on protease market is on prizer education and increasing performance. Hence our objective was to isolate a potent protease producing microorganism and production of acid protease using dairy effluent. Dairy effluent contain rich amount of organic and inorganic substances. In order to achieve the objective, a proteolytic bacterium was isolated from soil using milk agar medium and the bacteria was identified as Aeromonascaviae by morphological and biochemical characterization. Dairy industry effluent was then used as a medium for acid protease synthesis by the potent bacteria. The highest amount of acid protease synthesized by bacterium was 56.66U/ml when incubated for 80hat37°C and optimum enzyme titers were found atpH4.7 when incubated at 120rpm. Partial purification with ammonium sulphate and complete purification were showed 2-fold increase in the specific activity (104.66U/mg protein).Dairy industry effluent was thus found to be an effective medium for acid protease synthesis by using Aeromonascaviae.

Keywords: Acid Protease, Milk Agar, Aeromonascaviae, Production Medium, Dairy Effluent.