Abstract
Gelatin contamination is of great concern from economic and public health point of view. In this study, bacterial contamination during different stages of gelatin manufacturing process was examined. One hundred and fifty four isolates were obtained from different stages of gelatin production process. Wet noodles samples acquired the highest percentage of bacterial isolates (14.93%). Majority of the bacterial isolates were classified as Gram-positive bacilli (79.8%). 51.3% of isolates showed moderate gelatinase activity. The most potent gelatinase producing isolate was identified as Bacillus cereus based on biochemical and 16S rRNA sequence analyses. Fluoroquinolones were the most effective antibiotics against bacterial isolates with the highest sensitivity rate (94.78%). Cinnamon oil exhibits the highest sensitivity rate (97.6%) and low MIC values (0.195 mu l/ml). GC/MC analyses revealed that monoterpenes were the predominant components of the essential oils. The main constituent of cinnamon oil was cinnamaldehyde (63.69%). Gelatinase was purified by ion exchange and size exclusion chromatography. Zymography and SDS-PAGE analysis estimated that the purified enzyme is similar to 100 KDa molecular size.