www.tjprc.org editor@tjprc.org PARTIAL CHARACTERIZATION OF AMYLASE ENZYME FROM NEWLY ISOLATED BACTERIAL STRAIN FROM GARDEN SOIL ABHISHEK 1 , VISHAL 2 , MANPREET 3 , NAVNEET BATRA 4 & MEENU WALIA 5 1,2,3 Department of Biotechnology, SD College, Ambala Cantt., India 4 Department of Biotechnology, GGDSD College, Chandigarh, India 5 Assistant Professor, Department of Biotechnology, SD College, Ambala Cantt., India ABSTRACT Amylase producing bacterial strain MB2 was isolated from soil and it showed maximum production of enzyme in 48 hours. Crude enzyme has an optimum temperature of 40 o C and optimum pH of 7.0. The relative enzyme activity of 97% was observed at pH 6. After incubation for 40oC, the enzyme lost only 2.5% of activity after 48 hours of incubation. More than 90% of activity were retained even after 48 hours at pH 7. Calcium acts as an activator for amylase. KEYWORDS: Amylase, Stability, Starch Hydrolysis, Optimum pH & Calcium Received: Jun 09, 2017; Accepted: Jul 04, 2017; Published: Jul 10, 2017; Paper Id.: IJBTRAUG20172 INTRODUCTION Amylase is an industrially important enzyme, which break down starch into maltose and dextrins, which further finally degraded into glucose units. Due to the commercial application of amylase enzyme in paper industry, induction of sugar from production of sugar syrup, fabrics decision, liquefaction of starch, brewing industry, pharmaceuticals is essentially important for industrial purpose (Ito et al., 1998; Ammar et al., 2002; Xie et al., 2014). Application of α-amylase for fiber splitting in leather processing was reported by Pandi et al., (2016). The main source of amylase enzyme are plants, animals and microorganisms. Mainly, microorganisms are used for amylase production. Because of their stability at extreme conditions, biochemical versatility, the production rate is higher and large scale availability of microbial strains in a short time is possible at low cost production. Amylase is also known as glycoside hydrolases as it acts on α 1, 4 glycosidic bond. They are highly specific for substrate. Alpha and beta are the main subtypes of amylase enzyme. Alpha amylase is faster acting enzyme as compared to beta amylase. Endoamylase and exoamylase are two categories of enzyme. Endoamylase enzyme led to the formation of linear and branched chain oligosaccharides by catalyzing hydrolysis in a random manner within the starch molecule. However, exoamylases produces shorter end products by hydrolyzing from the nonreducing end. Amylose and amylopectin are two glucose polymers which are connected by glycosidic bond and ultimately led to the formation of the starch molecule. Amylose is a linear polymer which consists of 6000 glucose units that are joined by α-1, 4 glycosidic bond, while amylopectin consists of 10-60 glucose units which are linked by α-1, 4 glycosidic bond by 15-45 glucose units having α-1, 6 linked side chains. To maintain their structural conformation, stability and activity amylase enzyme require calcium ion. Amylase enzyme isolated from bacteria, fungi and yeast have been used in scientific research and in Original Article International Journal of Bio-Technology and Research (IJBTR) ISSN (P):2249-6858; ISSN (E):2249-796X Vol. 7, Issue 3, Jun 2017, 21-28 © TJPRC Pvt. Ltd.