ISOLATION AND CHARACTERIZATION OF AMYLASE PRODUCING BACTERIA FROM SOIL IN DEBRE BERHAN ETHIOPIA

Fekede Meshesha Namo
Page No. 48-60

Amylase enzyme is an enzyme that hydrolyzes starch into smallest substance such as glucose. Debre Berhan is rich in numerous important microbes which can be used for production of different products with desirable industrial applications. This study aimed to isolate and morphologically and biochemically characterize the bacteria species and to optimize the growth parameter. The amylase producing bacteria were isolated from farmland around Debre Berhan, Ethiopia and characterized. For this study six bacterial strains (S1b2, S1b3, S2b2, S2b3, S3b2 and S3b3) were isolated and screened for amylase production through using iodine test on SNA and by measurement of OD value. Isolate S3b2 was resulted higher clear zone formation and OD absorbance of crude enzyme after enzyme production. Based on these characters the S3b2 isolate was selected for further process. Different biochemical and morphological tests such as gram staining, catalase, starch hydrolysis, VP, methyl red, endospore staining, motility and citrate utilization tests were done to characterize and identify the selected isolate. Finally, the selected isolate was identified as bacillus spp. The growth condition optimizations were performed to know the effect of different parameters such as temperature, pH and incubation period on bacterial cell growth. Accordingly, the optimum growth temperature, pH, incubation time was identified as 370c, pH 7 and 36 hrs respectively.
Key words: amylase, microorganism, starch degradation, clear zone