Effect of alternative carbon and nitrogen sources on production of alpha-amylase by Bacillus megaterium

Abstract

Amylases are one of the most important industrial enzymes that account for about 30% of the world's enzyme production and have a wide variety of applications ranging from conversion of starch to sugar syrups, food, feed fermentation, textile, detergent and paper industries. In present work, Bacillus megaterium was isolated from soil on starch agar medium by zone analysis method. Work was carried out for the optimization of α-amylase production by Bacillus megaterium grown on different carbon source such as glucose, fructose, galactose, lactose, maltose, sucrose, starch, dextrose, molasses, date syrup, rice husk and sugarcane bagasse with different concentration (0.5 and 1.0 %). Maximum production of α-amylase was obtained on 0.5 % Dextrose (1015 Units/ml). α-amylase production was also optimized by using different nitrogen sources such as peptone (control), tryptone, yeast extract, corn steep liquor, casein hydrolyzed, casein soluble, urea, sodium nitrate, potassium nitrate, ammonium nitrate, ammonium chloride and ammonium sulphate and the maximum production of α-amylase were found in the presence of 1.5% peptone (1722 Units/ml).