Production, Purification and Quality Testing of Pectinase Enzyme from Bacillus subtilis Isolated from Orange Peel

Abstract

Microorganisms as bioreactors have gained immense applicability both industrially and therapeutically. Natural ability of microbes in synthesizing some medicinally and industrially important compounds makes them the target of choice in research. Current work aims to utilize the ability of microbes to produce the enzyme pectinase in lab scale followed by its testing in the industrial application. Pectinase is a natural microbial enzyme that can hydrolyze the substrate pectin, a cell wall component of fruits and vegetables. The enzyme is industrially applied to soften the cell wall layer of the vegetables and fruits thereby causing high yield and efficacy in juice extraction. Study included the isolation of enzyme producing bacteria from spoiled orange peel as a source. Positive bacterial cultures capable of producing the enzyme are to be used in the production of enzyme followed by its purification using several downstream processing steps.  Further, identification of the enzyme producing bacteria can be carried out based on grams staining and biochemical tests based on Beregy’s manual.