Isolation and identification of soil bacteria: Purification and functional characterization of celc

Microbial cellulases serve as important biocatalysts, distinguished by their unique characteristics and composition, and they have a wide range of applications across various industries. The research aimed to identify a bacterial strain with high cellulase production followed by purification of cellulase and its characterization. The highest cellulase producer strain designated as OKB3 was identified as Bacillus amyloliquefaciens by biochemical and molecular identification. The purification was achieved through ammonium sulfate precipitation and gel filtration chromatography. The purified monomeric enzyme had a 2.34 purification fold and a 33.34% recovery with 96 kDa molecular mass. This cellulase named CelC revealed the optimum activity at pH 6 at 55 °C and was highly stable at pH 5.5 to pH 6.0 at 0 °C to 4 °C. Such properties make CelC potentially valuable for industrial and biotechnological applications.