PJB-2018-213
TITLE: ACTINOMYCETE SP. MM-3 FROM RHIZOSPHERE OF PSIDIUM GUAVUM: A POTENTIAL CANDIDATE FOR PROTEASE WITH DEHAIRING PROPERTIES
Madiha Shaikh
Abstract
Soil is the richest medium for isolation of microbial flora especially Actinomycetes as potent sources of extracellular enzymes. Soil samples from rhizosphere of guava plant (Psidium guavum) were screened for proteolytic bacteria. Among all isolates, Actinomycete sp. MM-3 showed the best proteolytic activity on skim milk agar plates and successfully utilized crude agriculture based substrates including malt, wheat bran, ground nuts and soya bean as carbon and nitrogen sources. Optimum incubation time for enzyme production was 96h (420U/ml), while optimum age and size of inoculum was 24 h (95 U/ml) and 10% (482 U/ml), respectively. Maximum units of protease were observed with 0.5% starch (396U/ml) as carbon source and 1% gelatin (439 U/ml) as nitrogen source, after 96 h, at pH 7-8, 37˚C and 150 rpm. Application of partially purified protease on sheep and goat skins resulted in a highly promising dehairing efficiency as an alternative of lime-sulfide chemical unhairing process. Enzyme-treated dehaired leather was processed further through other pre-tanning steps like liming, fleshing, deliming and pickling. Resulted crust from chrome blue pelt showed high degree of tear strength (40.93 ± 4.21) N/mm k=2, good tensile strength (16.58 ± 2.31) N/mm k=2 and elongation (155.08 ± 5.97) N/mm k=2 comparing to lime-sulfide unhairing process. Other significant advantages of enzymatic dehairing were total recovery of hairs, simplification of pre-taining process and reduction in use of sodium sulfide. Thus producer strain Actinomycete MM-3 of soil origin emerged as a potential candidate for protease using low-cost production medium to be utilized by leather industry. Key words: Actinomycete sp. MM-3, Protease, Dehairing, Leather industry.
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