Isolation and Characterization of Neutral Proteases Producing Soil fungus <em>Cladosporium</em> sp PAB2014 Strain FGCC/BLS2: Process Optimization for Improved Enzyme Production

Abstract

Proteases account for nearly 60% of the industrial enzyme market and have wide applications. Present study has been designed to isolate and screen protease producing fungi from various soil samples of Jaipur region and optimum physico-cultural conditions for enhanced protease production from selected isolate was also investigated. Isolate fungi were screened by growing them onto skim milk agar plates and the zone of proteolysis was noted. Isolate FGCC/BLS2 showed maximum hydrolysis capacity when compared to wild type positive reference strain <em>Aspergillus flavus</em>. Molecular Characterization of the FGCC/BLS 2 isolate confirmed it as <em>Cladosporium </em> sp. PAB 2014 strain FGCC/BLS 2 (Submitted to Gen Bank: Accession Number KU 752193). The highest enzyme activity was obtained with production media at 120 hour (60.9±2.17 U/mg protein) with 2% inoculums (63.19±0.59 U/mg protein), pH 7 (63.77±2.45 U/mg protein), dextrose as the carbon source (63.9±1.63 U/mg protein) and tryptone as a nitrogen source (66.9±2.34 U/mg protein). The optimum conditions for protease assay was found to be 40^oC temperature, 1.5% substrate concentration and at pH 7.0 respectively.