A.N. Gandharkar and Ashish Jain
Abstract
Collagen is the most considerable protein in mammals, however, because of its unique and specific amino acid composition and triple helix tertiary structure, which can only be degraded by using certain proteases (consisting of collagenase secreted by bacteria). Microbial collagenases are promising enzymes due to their numerous industrial and biological applications. Rising evidence of capacity nutritional and health advantages suggest that microbial collagenases are promising as bioactive compounds and key components in the preparation of peptides. Collagenase is essential in food, nutrition, biotechnology and medicine. Collagen peptides are produced by hydrolysing animal collagen. In recent years, the existence of foods derived from bioactive peptides and proteins that may be beneficial to humans has attracted great attention. Collagenase is produced by some pathogenic bacteria and fungi. These bacteria are widely used for the production of microbial collagenases. The first microbial collagenase recognised and characterised was produced by using Clostridium sp. Microbial collagenase is a promising enzyme dealing with its many commercial and biological applications. Therefore, this study focuses on the screening of collagenase producing bacteria from protein waste soils (especially fish shops and slaughterhouses), which tend to produce collagenase with a wide range of substrates and many commercial applications. In this study, microorganisms were screened out from suitable habitats and evaluated for their capacity to produce collagenase. Optimizing the collagenase production process to achieve maximum enzyme production. The enzyme was purified and characterized using biochemical techniques. Most promising enzymes and isolates were evaluated for antimicrobial activity against different microorganisms.