Abstract

Farheen Aslam*, Maryam Rasheed and Saima Iftikhar Bajwa

ABSTRACT

The protease producing bacteria are widely explored for the high quality production of various industrial products of high commercial values. These enzymes catalyze hydrolysis of peptide bond present in proteins. They are widely used commercially in pharmaceuticals, leather, food and detergent industries. Most of microbes produce more than one kind of enzymes. The nature of protease producing bacteria depends on the nature of media and optimum conditions used for their growth. Proteases are produced by a variety of organisms like plants, animals, fungi and bacteria. Most commonly, bacteria are used for efficient production of proteases due to their high multiplication rates. The cost of protease production is a major hurdle in their way of use in industries. This obstacle can be overcome by improving the yield of proteases. The extensive screening techniques are performed to screen the overproducing strains of microbes and they are further purified through other selection methods. The protease production is enhanced with the advancement in genetic engineering techniques like expression of recombinant proteins in a variety of host organisms, advancement in manipulation procedures and enhancement in the processes such as transcription, translation and secretion. Applications of proteases have been enhanced by improvement in the fields of producing recombinant proteins for modifying protease characteristics in terms of their specificity, stability, mode of action and kinetics. The techniques like random mutagenesis and site directed mutagenesis are being performed for constructing and designing the new structures of protease with increased stability.