Silk degumming is a fundamental process used for the removal of the substrate such as silk gum (sericin), wax and some impurities from silk fibers while processing the fine silk in silk industries. The conventional principle focus on the breakage of peptide bond linkage of amino acid present in sericin structure into a small molecule to make it soluble in water. Various hydrolytic enzymes play a vital role in silk degumming industry. Many acidic and neutral proteases are quite efficient on silk degumming solution as substrate but they have some disadvantages such as their thermal and chemical instability which change the enzyme characteristics and functions. Here we have optimized the production of alkaline protease using silk degumming solution as substrate which was hampering the quality and physical appearance of silk. Mulberry silk degumming solution as a substrate was potentially investigated for alkaline protease assay from potent Northern India soil bacteria. Out of 5 bacterial isolates the best results were obtained by Bacillus licheniformis which showed a higher amount of protease production after 72 h of incubation at 40ºC.
