Effect of different growth parameters on chitinase enzyme activity

The degradation of chitin is mediated primarily by bacterial chitinases. Bacteria produce several chitinases, probably to hydrolyze the diversity of chitins found in nature. Chitinases have shown numerous applications in waste treatment and management of shellfish processing industries. Therefore, in the present study, an attempt was made to optimize chitinase production by one of the shrimp’s gut mutant bacterial flora, Pseudomonas alcaligenes. Optimization of culture conditions revealed that the enzyme production was maximum in pH 7.5 (107.4 ± 0.50 U/ml), temperature 35°C (103.15 ± 1.74 U/ml) when the carbon and the nitrogen sources used were CMC (106.0 ± 1.89 U/ml) and KNO3 (91.2 ± 1.51 U/ml), respectively. The total chitinase production for all optimum conditions is 105.07 ± 1.33 U/ml.Keywords: Chitinase, shrimp gut, mutant, Pseudomonas alcaligenes, optimization conditionAfrican Journal of Biotechnology, Vol 13(23) 2336-234