Abstract
Bacterial samples isolated from the upper respiratory tract of a healthy broiler chicken and a wild chicken suffering from influenza which were collected locally revealed proteolytic activity as detected by sodium dodecyl sulfate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE) and zymogram analysis. Among five protease producing strains screened, one was selected as promising protease producer. The activity of the protease produced by this organism is stable up to 620C. Optimum yield was achieved after 19 hours of culture, at pH 9.0 and 450C. The desired protein was precipitated from the crude extract by using ammonium sulfate (60%) followed by dialysis and purified by Ion-exchange chromatography. Further investigations are needed to know about the structure elucidation of the purified protein for industrial exploitation.