BIOCHEMICAL, MOLECULAR CHARACTERIZATION AND SEQUENCE ANALYSIS OF KERATINASE PRODUCING NOVEL STRAIN OF BACILLUS LICHENIFORMIS ISOLATED FROM POULTRY FARM Original Article

Objective: To isolate and characterize a novel strain of keratinase producing bacterium from poultry farm. Methods: Preliminary study of bacterial isolation from poultry faeces soil sample was done by serial dilution followed by microscopic analysis, morphological characteristics and biochemical tests of pure isolated culture. Further, the identification of bacterium as novel strain was confirmed by subjecting its amplicon to 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis and pairwise alignment through BLAST tool. RNA Secondary structure of 16S rRNA gene sequence was predicted through RNAfold Web server and RNA structure tool. Phylogenetic tree based on taxonomic positions was inferred using the Neighbor-joining (NJ) algorithm in Molecular Evolution Genetic Analysis (MEGA) software version 4.0. MAR index value of this strain was determined against six antibiotics using disc diffusion method. Results: The bacterium was identified as Bacillus licheniformis strain 018. Different parameters of RNA Secondary structure of 16S rRNA gene sequence was obtained through Bioinformatics tools. Minimum Free Energy and G+C content were calculated as -247.40 kcal/mol and 54.7% respectively.MAR index of this novel strain was found to be zero. Conclusion: The isolation of bacteria from different sources offers novel bacteria as their potential applications in different biotechnological processes. The present investigation clearly indicates the isolation, molecular characterization and sequence analysis (through Bioinformatics tools) of Bacillus licheniformiss train 018 and its industrial applications.