Production of alkaline protease from a newly isolated Exiguobacterium profundum BK-P23 evaluated using the response surface methodology

Protease producing bacteria were isolated from soil in South Korea. These bacteria were screened in skim milk agar medium using skim milk as the substrate. The highest clear zone producing bacterial strain (BK-P23) was selected for further optimization studies. The strain was identified as Exiguobacterium profundum BK-P23 based on morphological, biochemical and molecular characterizations. The results of the 16S rRNA analysis showed that this strain was highly similar to E. profundum. The strain was able to grow under alkaline conditions at pH 8.5 and a temperature of 30°C. In the preliminary optimization experiments, five different parameters, i.e. carbon source (lactose), nitrogen source (corn steep solid), pH, temperature and incubation period were varied with the goal of optimizing enzyme production in low cost medium using the Box-Behnken design combined with response surface methodology. The optimal conditions were determined to be pH 9.0, a temperature of 30°C, lactose (1.0%) as the carbon source and corn steep solid (1.0%) as the cheap additional nitrogen source. In addition, 24 h of incubation was shown to produce the highest protease yield. Overall, the amount of enzyme produced was significantly higher in the optimized medium when compared with the original medium.