Abstract
The present study deals with the characterization of halotolerant protease produced by Bacillus aquimaris VITP4 strain isolated from Kumta coast, Karnataka, India. The studies were performed at 40°C and pH 8 in Tris buffer. Metal ions such as Mn(2+) and Ca(2+) increased the proteolytic activity of the enzyme by 34 and 30%, respectively, at 10mM concentration. Cu(2+) at 1mM concentration was found to enhance the enzyme activity by 16%, whereas inhibition was observed at higher concentration (>5mM). Slight inhibition was observed even with lower (>1mM) concentrations of Zn(2+), Hg(2+), Fe(3+), Ni(2+), and Co(2+).The activity of protease was completely inhibited by phenylmethylsulfonyl fluoride, indicating that the VITP4 protease is a serine protease. The presence of ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid and 1,10-phenanthroline (>5mM) moderately inhibited the activity, suggesting that the enzyme is activated by metal ions. The protease was purified to homogeneity with a purification fold of 15.7 with ammonium sulfate precipitation and 46.65 with gel filtration chromatography using Sephadex G-100, resulting in a specific activity of 424 ± 2.6Umg(-1). The VITP4 protease consists of a single polypeptide chain with a molecular mass of 34.7kDa as determined by sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis and matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization-time of flight. Among the different substrates used (casein, egg albumin, gelatin, and bovine serum albumin), the activity was higher with casein with V max, K m, and k cat values of 0.817mgmlmin(-1), 0.472mgml(-1), and 2.31s(-1), respectively. Circular dichroism studies revealed that the VITP4 protease has a predominantly β-sheet structure (51.6%) with a temperature for half denaturation of 85.8°C in the presence of 1mM CaCl2. Additionally, the VITP4 protease was found to retain more than 70% activity in the presence of 10mM concentration of different detergents (CTAB, urea, and sodium dodecyl sulfate) and surfactants (Triton X-100, Tween-20, and Tween-80), and the results of wash performance test with various commercial detergents confirmed that it can be used in detergent formulations.
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