Partial Purification and Characterization of Amylase from a newly Isolated Bacillus Megaterium Strain KAN1 from Fermented Rice Handia

This study investigated the partial purification and characterization of a new strain of Bacillus megaterium strain KAN1 (GenBank accession number: BankIt1545135 seq1 JX182976). It was isolated from traditional fermented drink Handia. The enzyme was then partially purified by ammonium sulphate precipitation. The results showed that the purified enzyme has specific activity of 1.05 U mg-1. This was an increase of 2.07 times than the raw enzyme extract. The optimum pH of the purified enzyme was 11, but the enzyme can work effectively in the pH range of 5.0 – 14.0. The temperature optimum for enzyme activity was 60°C, although the effective activity was seen in a wide range of temperature.  The Km and Vmax values for soluble starch substrate were 0.65 mg/ml and 1.568 mg min -1 . Electrophoresis with SDS-polyacrylamide showed that the molecular weight of the enzyme was 67 kDa.