Int.J.Curr.Microbiol.App.Sci (2017) 6(12): 3326-3332 3326 Original Research Article https://doi.org/10.20546/ijcmas.2017.612.387 Optimization of a Novel Alkaline Protease from Cashew Industrial Soil Associated Aspergillus niger G. Parvathy * , C. Prabhakumari, Nair Sreecha Chandran and Sonia John Department of Biotechnology, CEPC Laboratory and Research Institute, Mundakkal, Kollam, Kerala, India *Corresponding author ABSTRACT Introduction Proteases catalyze hydrolytic reactions of protein molecules resulting the formation peptides and amino acids. These enzymes have remarkable applications in both physiological and commercial fields. Among all the different commercial enzymes, microbial protease in particular, represents about 60% of all the industrial enzyme’s sales in the world due to their applications in several industrial sectors like in the detergent, food, pharmaceuticals, chemicals, leather, paper and pulp and silk industries (Singh et al., 2016). Proteases have physiological role in all living organisms and therefore, they are present in a wide range of sources such as animals, plants and microorganisms (Rao, 1998) Microbial origin proteases are preferred over other proteases for industrial application due to the broad biochemical diversity and their susceptibility to genetic manipulation as well as economic advantages (Souza et al., 2015; Ferid Abidi et al., 2008). The protease mediated leather processing is an efficient alternative in an environmental friendly manner to improve the quality of leather, help to shrink waste and, save time and energy (Zambare et al., 2011; Adrio and International Journal of Current Microbiology and Applied Sciences ISSN: 2319-7706 Volume 6 Number 12 (2017) pp. 3326-3332 Journal homepage: http://www.ijcmas.com Protease the leading industrial enzyme accounts for about 60% of the total enzyme market. It has wide application in different sectors. The search of proteases with better activity and potential of different application is very important. The current paper screened cashew nut processing units’ soil near Kollam for the isolation of effective protease producers. The isolated fungal strains isolated from soil by serial dilution method were screened by casein hydrolysis for alkaline protease production. Out of the ten isolated strains of fungi A, B, G and H are protease producers. After the optimization the isolate strain H showed highest activity in the optimized medium at pH 11.0, temperature 35ºC, with glucose as carbon source incubated for 7 days. The highest enzymatic activity is showed in the 4th day of batch fermentation at 96hr of incubation. The most potent protease produced strain was identified based on morphological characterization characteristics in National Fungal Culture Collection of India (NFCCI & FIS) Pune as Aspergillus niger. Proteases represent one of the largest groups of industrial enzymes and find application in detergents in the removal of different kinds of stains and also in dehairing process practised in leather industry. Keywords Protease, Aspergillus niger, NFCCI. Accepted: 26 October 2017 Available Online: 10 December 2017 Article Info