Proteolysis-resistant lipases can be well exploited by industrial processes which employ both lipase and protease as biocatalysts. A proteolysis resistant lipase from Bacillus pumilus SG2 was isolated, purified and characterized earlier. The lipase was resistant to native and commercial proteases. In the present work, we have characterized the lip gene which encodes the proteolysis-resistant lipase from Bacillus pumilus SG2. The parameters and structural details of lipase were analysed. The lip gene consisted of 650 bp. The experimental molecular weight of SG2 lipase was nearly double that of its theoretical molecular weight, thus suggesting the existence of the functional lipase as a covalent dimer. The proteolytic cleavage sites of the lipase would have been made inaccessible by dimerisation, thus rendering the lipase resistant to protease.

This study was aimed at producing protease and lipase simultaneously on a common medium by Bacillus licheniformis VSG1, which was isolated from a tannery effluent. The effect of media composition with respect to protein source, lipid source and emulsifier on the production of protease and lipase was analysed. Both those enzymes were produced under optimized conditions like pH, temperature and incubation time. The enzyme mixture comprising of both protease and lipase was purified by ammonium sulphate precipitation, dialysis and gel filtration chromatography to obtain 20-fold pure enzymes. The purified enzyme mixture was characterized to determine the optimum pH and temperature of protease and lipase, the response of the enzymes to inhibitors, additives and solvents. The molecular weight of both the enzymes was determined as 40 kDa on SDS-PAGE. The concomitant production of protease and lipase and the purification of both the enzymes in a single mixture have industrial significance, as many industrial processes use both protease and lipase together.