Bioprospecting of Marine Fungi for Production of Extracellular Protease

Proteases from microorganisms have attracted much attention in the last decade because of their gigantic potential in various industrial processes due to their proteolytic activity such as detergent, textile, leather, dairy, and pharmaceutical preparations. However, proteolytic enzymes from microorganisms are preferred in the industrial application of enzymes due to their technical and economic advantages. In the present research work, protease-producing microorganisms were isolated from marine soil samples and screened for protease-producing ability using skim milk agar. Among twenty-three isolates, nine isolates were protease positive indicated by the clear zone around the colony. In quantitative screening, the highest protease activity was observed with JML 15 (144.72 U/ml) and JML 8 (107.92 U/ml) and selected for further investigation. Based on the molecular characterization and phylogenetic studies, the selected isolates were identified as Penicillium lagena JML 8 (PP987316.1) and Penicillium oxalicum JML 15 (PQ160092.1). The results showed that JML 15 and JML 8 had great potential to be used for the production of protease enzymes and upscale for industrial production.