Effect of physical and chemical mutagenesis on protease production from Aeromonas hydrophila

Abstract

Secondary metabolite production from wild strains is very low for economical purpose therefore certain strain improvement strategies are required to achieve hundred times greater yield of metabolites. The present study was conducted for enhanced production of protease from Aeromonas hydrophila A4 by mutagenesis using ultraviolet (UV) radiation, and Mitomycin C (MitC) as mutagens. Results showed that a protease over producer mutant symbol A. hydrophila A4-78 was obtained after mutagenesis with UV irradiation with higher enzyme specific activity ( 47.6 U/mg protein) in comparison to the wild type (30.01U/mg protein). On the other hand another overproducer mutant symbol                 A. hydrophila A4-127 was obtained after chemical mutagenesis with MitC characterized with high protease production. The enzyme specific activity in its crude filtrate was 38.4 U/mg protein in comparison with the wild type. it could be concluded that physical mutagenesis using UV irradiation was more efficient than the chemical mutagenesis by MitC to enhance the ability of A. hydrophila A4 in protease production.