Biological Screening and identification of penicillin G acylase producing E. coli and optimization of production condition

Penicillin G acylase (PGA) of Escherichia coli is one of the most widely used enzymesat industrial scale. It is used to hydrolyse penicillin G to 6-aminopenicillanic acid, anessential intermediate in the production of semisynthetic penicillins. Due to high industrialimportance of PGA, numerous efforts have been made towards screening forstrains overproducing this enzyme. The objective of this study was to screen clinicalsamples for isolation and identification of E. coli strains producing PGA enzyme.The E. coli bacteria isolated from clinical samples were screened for PGA activity usingthe bioassay method. This method is based on the use of Serratia marcescens whichis sensitive to 6-APA but comparatively resistant to benzylpenicillin. After primaryscreening, the PGA production in positive isolates was verified by biochemical assay.Finally, the effects of incubation time, temperature, PAA concentration and media PHon PGA synthesis were studied and the optimum conditions for process were determined.