ABSTRACT:
Soil is one of the richest ecosystems as far as biodiversity is concerned. One gram of soil is estimated to have 4x107 bacterial cells. Such a huge reservoir of potential microbes needs to be explored for different enzymes and pharmaceutical principles of industrial importance. In the present study, an alkaline protease producing Bacillus mycoides strain was isolated and purified from industrial soil of Phagwara. The strain was cultured and screened for protease production. The enzyme was isolated and its physico-chemical parameters were studied. The protease proSSTA2 showed optimum activity at moderate temperature of 50°C and pH 10, making it an alkalophilic protease. Inhibitory effect of detergents, oxidants and inhibitors was also studied which revealed that proSSTA2 was stable in presence of 5% H2O2 and 1M Urea. Detergents (SDS, Triton X-100 and Tween) were found to elicit the activity to 3-folds, 4-folds and 5-folds respectively. BLAST analysis revealed that the protease belonged to S8_S53 super family of proteases. The sequence showed 95.34% similarity with protease of Sinorhizobacterium meliloti.