Production and estimation of alkaline protease by immobilized Bacillus licheniformis isolated from poultry farm soil of 24 Parganas and its reusability

Microbial alkaline protease has become an important industrial and commercial biotech product in the recent years and exerts major applications in food, textile, detergent, and pharmaceutical industries. By immobilization of microbes in different entrapment matrices, the enzyme produced can be more stable, pure, continuous, and can be reused which in turn modulates the enzyme production in an economical manner. There have been reports in support of calcium alginate and corn cab as excellent matrices for immobilization of Bacillus subtilis and Bacillus licheniformis, respectively. This study has been carried out using calcium alginate, κ-carrageenan, agar-agar, polyacrylamide gel, and gelatin which emphasizes not only on enzyme activity of immobilized whole cells by different entrapment matrices but also on their efficiency with respect to their reusability as first attempt. Gelatin was found to be the best matrix among all with highest enzyme activity (517 U/ml) at 24 h incubation point and also showed efficiency when reused.