Purification and characterization of urease from klebsiella pneumoniae local

Abstract EN

Klebsiella pneumoniae is considered one of the important causative agents of urinary tract infection (UTI) in human and it was selected as candidate for the isolation, purification and characterization of one virulence factor; namely urease.

Urease was purified after cultivating the bacteria using ultrafiltration, ion exchange (DEAE-Cellulose column) and gel filtration (Sephacryl S-200) chromatographies.

The results of this study revealed that urease was purified 10.4 fold with a yield of 7.2%.

Furthermore, the results of the enzyme characterization experiments proved that urease activity was maximal when pH was 7.5, and optimal activity attained when temperature of incubation was around 40°C.

The third characterization experiment involved utilizing gel filtration chromatography to estimate the molecular weight of the enzyme which showed that it was 126 kilodaltons.