STRAIN IMPROVEMENT STUDIES FOR THE ISOLATE STREPTOMYCES MALAYSIENSIS (TMS 1a)

Strain improvement is an essential part of process development for products of fermentation. The developed strain can reduce the costs with increased productivity and can possess some specialized and desirable characteristics. The isolated Streptomyces malaysiensis (TMS 1a) is obtained from termite mound soil and was subjected to strain improvement for keratinase production. Then the isolate was subjected to UV and nitrous acid treatment. The wild isolate Streptomyces malaysiensis (TMS 1a) produces 20IU/mL of keratinase activity while UV mutant UV-7 yielded 32.0IU/mL and the nitrous acid treatment UV7N-8(TMS 1a) exhibited 46IU/mL Enzyme activity. The UV Mutant showed 60% higher activity than the wild strain, where as nitrous acid treated UV7 N8 mutant showed maximum activity which was 43.75% higher than the UV Mutant strain. The overall strain improvement programme increases keratinase activity 2.3 folds with respect to the wild strain. Thus these results show that UV and HNO2 were effective mutagenic agents for strain improvement. Thus this effect is attributed to possible changes in the promoter zones of the gene coding for these enzymes due to UV exposure. The radiation might have deregulated the transcription of mRNA corresponding to these enzymes, which lead to an increased production.