Effect of nutritional factors on thermostable protease production by bacillus sp

Potease are most important industrial enzyme and had been applied in food, leather, detergent and medical industry. In this study, Bacillus sp. producing thermostable proteases was collected from UMK laboratory. Optimization of the fermentation medium was carried out in order to produce high yield thermostable protease by Bacillus sp. The effects of major medium ingredients, such as carbon, organic nitrogen and inorganic nitrogen, amino acids and metal ions, on the production of the enzyme were investigated. Among the carbon sources used, glucose showed the highest potential for the maximum protease production. Combination of beef extract and urea are better nitrogen sources for protease production than other choice in this study. The presence of amino acids proved to be less favourable thus it does not added into the medium. Supplementation of the culture medium with potassium chloride improved the protease production substantially. An overall 1456% increase in protease production was achieved in the optimized medium (20.78 U/ml) as compared with the unoptimized medium (6.22 U/ml).