Isolation and partial characterization of protease from Pseudomonas aeruginosa ATCC 27853

Abstract

Enzymatic characteristics of a protease from a medically important, referent strain of Pseudomonas aeruginosa ATCC 27853 were determined. According to sodium dodecyl sulfate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis, SDS-PAGE, and gel filtration, it was estimated that the molecular mass of the purified enzyme was about 15 kDa. Other enzymatic properties were found to be: pH optimum 7.1, pH stability between 6.5 and 10; temperature optimum around 60 °C while the enzyme was stable at 60 °C for 30 min. Inhibition of the enzyme was observed with metal chelators, such as EDTA and 1,10-phenanthroline, suggesting that the protease is a metalloenzyme. Furthermore, the enzyme contains one mole of zinc ion per mole of enzyme. The protease was stable in the presence of different organic solvents, which enables its potential use for the synthesis of peptides.

Keywords

• protease
• Pseudomonas aeruginosa
• purification
• characterization