Production and characterisation of thermostable alkaline protease from Bacillus subtilis isolated from LA hot spring, Terengganu

This research aims to produce thermostable alkaline protease from Bacillus subtilis isolated from La Hot Spring, Terengganu, Malaysia. The study was also conducted to determine the optimum conditions for protease production and stability by considering several parameters including pH, temperature and salt concentration. All seven bacteria were screened on skim milk agar overnight at 37 degrees C. Three strains with the highest proteolytic activity were identified in protease specific medium. The thermostable alkaline protease had an optimum temperature of 60 degrees C which achieved 85.73, 82.90 and 83.05 U/mL of protease activity for the three strains respectively. Furthermore, the strains exhibited significant activity of more than 90% from their original activity. Meanwhile, the optimum pH for protease production was pH 9 with the protease activity of 76.76, 79.71 and 88.39 U/mL for TB4, TB6 and TB9 strains, respectively. Proteases were found stable at pH 9 where the loss did not exceed 30% of its original activity. Collectively, all of the data emphasised that proteases from B. subtilis were alkaline thermostable proteases in accordance with a recent report. The finding highlights the viability of the proteases for biotechnological and industrial applications.