The protease produced by a Bacillus pumilus CN8 strain was purified by DEAE-Cellulose-52 ion exchange. It has a molecular weight of approximately 96,920 Dalton. In the present study, this protease showed strong activity over a broad range of pH (6.5-9.5) and temperature from 40℃ to 60℃, and the protease performed the maximal activity at pH 7.3 at 42℃. The effect of metal ions on protease activity showed that K+ could slightly increase the protease activity, and other ions such as Zn²+, Fe²+, Na+, Ca²+, Mg²+ had no significant activation or inhibition to the protease (P > 0.05), and the more important is that Cu²+, Mn²+, Sn²+, Cd²+ had a strong inhibitory effect on the protease activity.

This study was conducted to develop a model for describing the effect of storage temperature (4, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30 and 35℃) on the growth of Escherichia coli O157 : H7 in ready-to-eat (RTE) lettuce treated with or without (control) alkaline electrolyzed water (AIEW). The growth curves were well fitted with the Gompertz equation, which was used to determine the specific growth rate (SGR) and lag time (LT) of E. coli O157 : H7 (R2 = 0.994). Results showed that the obtained SGR and LT were dependent on the storage temperature. The growth rate increased with increasing temperature from 4 to 35℃. The square root models were used to evaluate the effect of storage temperature on the growth of E. coli O157 : H7 in lettuce samples treated without or with AIEW. The coefficient of determination (R2), adjusted determination coefficient (R2 Adj), and mean square error (MSE) were employed to validate the established models. It showed that R2 and R2 Adj were close to 1 (> 0.93), and MSE calculated from models of untreated and treated lettuce were 0.031 and 0.025, respectively. The results demonstrated that the overall predictions of the growth of E. coli O157 : H7 agreed with the observed data.