RESUMO
Besides of being largely used for antibiotic production, streptomyces have also been pointed out as good producers of enzymes with industrial interest such as protease. In this work, the effect of corn oil on protease production by S. virisdoporus T7A was investigated as part of a wide project for microbial protease production. Culture media contained 0.65(per cent) yeast as nitrogen source, corn oil or corn oil combined with 0.65(per cent) glucose as carbone source, plus mineral salts. In both cases, corn oil used in three differents concentrations, 0.1, 0.5 and 1(per cent) (p/V). All experiments were carried out in agitated flasks at 37§C for 105 hours. Higher protease activty (52 U/L) was obtained in medium containing 0.65(per cent) glucose and 1.0(per cent) corn oil as carbon sources. Protease activity responded positively to the increase in the medium C/N ratio, i.e., to the increment in oil concentration. Our results also suggested that corn oil favours enzyme stability during the fermentation.