LAUSR

Chitosanases are potential candidates for chitooligosaccharides (COS) production‐based industries, therefore, the discovery of chitosanases having commercial potential will remain a priority worldwide. This study aims to characterize different chitosanases of Bacillus strains for COS production. Six different indigenous Bacillus strains (B. cereus EGE‐B‐6.1m, B. cereus EGE‐B‐2.5m, B. cereus EGE‐B‐5.5m, B. cereus EGE‐B‐10.4i, B. thuringiensis EGE‐B‐3.5m, and B. mojavensis EGE‐B‐5.2i) were used to purify and characterize chitosanases. All purified chitosanases have a similar molecular weight (37 kDa) as determined by sodium dodecyl sulfate–polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. However, other characteristics such as optimum temperature and pH, kinetic parameters (Km and Vmax), temperature, and pH stabilities were dissimilar among the strains of different Bacillus species and within the same species. Furthermore, chitosanases of all strains were able to successfully hydrolyze chitosan to COS and oligomers of the degree of polymerization 2–6 were detected with chitobiose and chitotriose as major hydrolysis products. The relative yields of COS were in a range of 19%–31% and chitosanase of B. thuringiensis EGE‐B‐3.5m turned out to be the best enzyme in terms of its characteristics and COS production potential with maximum relative yield (31%). Results revealed that Bacillus chitosanases could be used directly for efficient bioconversion of chitosan into COS and will be valuable for large‐scale production of biologically active COS.