PRODUCTION OF EXTRACELLULAR HALOPHILIC AMYLASE BY MARINE CYANOBACTERIUM OSCILLATORIA ACUTISSIMA

This study aimed at the amylase production using seawater instead of fresh water. Amylase is one of the most important enzymes and is very important for biotechnology. Versatile applications of amylase in many industries make optimization of the manufacturing process to achieve maximum yield is in need. Amylase is a widely used and sought-after industrial enzyme. The current research paper describes the production conditions of extracellular amylase from Oscillatoria acutissima. The marine cyanobacterium Oscillatoria acutissima culture was statistically optimized using Plackett-Burman and Box-Behnken designs, under submerged fermentation conditions, for optimum amylase production and activity conditions. The verified Plackett-Burman and Box-Behnken designs results showed that the starch degradation and incubation period improved significantly from 53% to 99% and from 18th to 12th days incubation period, respectively, with pH = 7 at temperature 35°C. SDS-PAGE resolved the molecular weight of partially purified amylase at 72 kilodalton. This research work suggested that marine cyanobacterium Oscillatoria acutissima could be a potential source of halophilic amylase enzyme needed for various industrial processes. To the best of our knowledge, this is one of a few studies on cyanobacteria since while and the first report on amylase production by marine cyanobacterium Oscillatoria acutissima.