STATISTICAL MODELING AND OPTIMIZATION OF KERATINASE PRODUCTION FROM NEWLY ISOLATED BACILLUS SUBTILIS RSE163

A newly isolated Bacillus subtilis RSE163 was selected to study the effect of physico-chemical parameters enhancing keratinase production. These parameters were optimized statistically in two steps. Preliminary screening selects the three most significant variables glucose, peptone and time for the second level optimization by Response Surface Methodology. According to the responses from the experimental design, the effects of each variable were calculated and the interaction between the three factors and its effect on enzyme production was clearly demonstrated by 3D contour plots. The final optimized medium gave a maximum yield of 1960 U/ml of keratinase at 48 h. The validation of the results was done in the bench scale experiments in lab.