Ashwini Narasimhan and Srividya Shivakumar
A novel Bacillus subtilis (JN032305), strain was isolated from Chilli rhizosphere soil. It exhibited broad-spectrum antifungal activity against nine potent chilli pathogens. The Strain was detected for chitinase production on colloidal chitin plates.. The strain was able to produce Chitinase (1 U/mL) on Nutrient broth (NB) amended with colloidal chitin (10g/L). The optimization of fermentation medium for the production of chitinase by this strain was done using Plackett- Burman design. The procedure limited the number of actual experiments performed while allowing for possible interactions between the components. The Design revealed that for chitinase production, CMC (10g/L), incubation period of 72 h, and temperature (30ºC) were very significant. The Chitinase activity with unoptimised medium was 1 U/mL and that was enhanced ten folds to 11.5 U/mL under optimized conditions using Plackett- Burman design.
