Isolation and characterization of starch degrading bacteria from disparate soil samples

Abstract

Amylases are starch degrading enzymes. These enzymes play a pivotal role in the biotechnology industries in food, fermentation, textiles, and paper production. Many industries lack local amylase supply, so the demand for amylase is often high. The study focuses on the screening and isolation of amylase producing bacteria from disparate samples of soil. The promising hydrolytic strains of bacteria from the collected samples were characterized using enzyme kinetics and further investigation is carried out to characterize the amylase enzyme produced by optimization of pH and temperature. The shortlisted isolate was identified using 16s rRNA sequencing. This study is an initial result of an exploration where soil is a source of industrially important amylase producing bacterial strains.