Isolation of fungi from soil sample for screening of protease enzyme

Microbial proteases are among the most important hydrolytic enzymes and have been studied extensively. The demand of proteases is continuously increasing in the industries. Proteases from microorganisms have attracted a great deal of attention in the last decade because of their biotechnology potential in various industrial processes such as detergent, textile, leather, dairy and pharmaceutical preparations. Proteases account for nearly 60s% of the industrial enzyme market and have wide applications. Present study has been designed to isolates fungal species and screening protease producing fungi from various soil samples from Chh. Sambhajinagar (Aurangabad) of Marathwada region from Maharashtra state. The isolated fungal species were screened for their protease-generating abilities by using the skim milk agar plates experiment. The isolated species that gave high positive results were obtained in screening of proteases in Aspergillus sp. and Penicillium sp. To analysis of the colonies on the basis of morphology we used the lacto-phenol cotton blue staining technique with light microscope at 10x and 40x magnifications. The results showed that among these isolated fungi sp. 2 species had great potential to produce of protease enzymes.