Microbial proteases: Detection, production, and genetic improvement

Abstract

Microbial proteases are one of the important groups of industrially and commercially produced enzymes contributing approximately 2/3 of all enzyme sales. Though proteases are produced by many microorganisms, emphasis is on the microorganisms producing proteases with desired characters. As demand for novel proteases is increasing day by day the initial screening methods and assays for protease detection are of utmost importance. This review focuses attention on present status of knowledge on the various methods and protocols available for protease screening, detection, and quantification starting from plate assays to spectrophotometric, fluorometric, and nanoparticles based assays. The review will help in making strategies for exploitation of protease resources and improvement of enzymes to obtain more robust proteases.

Keywords::

• Protease
• detection
• method
• review

Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to Director, IHBT (CSIR), Palampur for support and encouragement.

Declaration of interest

The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, Government of India, is acknowledged for financial support under the CSIR Network Project ‘‘Exploitation of India’s Rich Microbial Diversity ’’(NWP 006) and main lab project (MLP034). The IHBT communication number for this article is 2145.