A feather-degrading culture was enriched with isolates from a poultry waste digestor and adapted to grow with feathers as its primary source of carbon, sulfur, and energy. Subsequently, a feather-hydrolytic, endospore-forming, motile, rod-shaped bacterium was isolated from the feather-degrading culture. The organism was Gram stain variable and catalase positive and demonstrated facultative grow...

Three Bacillus species (B. subtilis LFB-FIOCRUZ 1270, B. subtilis LFB-FIOCRUZ 1273, and B. licheniformis LFB-FIOCRUZ 1274), isolated from the poultry industry, were evaluated for keratinase production using feathers or feather meal as the sole carbon and nitrogen sources in a submerged fermentation. The three Bacillus spp. produced extracellular keratinases and peptidases after 7 days. Feather ...

results the pcr approved the bacillus genus of the isolates. the strain of bacillus subtilis was identified using biochemical tests. 40 ºc and ph 11 are the optimum condition for maximum keratinase enzyme activity. objectives the aim of this study was the isolation of feather degrading bacillus spp.from a poultry waste and the optimization of conditions for the highest enzyme activity and feath...

1. The formation of the feather pattern has been studied in skin explants obtained from the lumbar region of the spinal pteryla of 6\to 7^-day chick embryos. Explants were cultured in vivo on the chorioallantoic membrane (CAM) or in vitro, either on semi-solid natural media (containing whole chick embryo extract (J£) or chick brain extract (EC)), or in a liquid synthetic medium (199). 2. Feathe...

A tremendous diversity of avian color displays has stimulated numerous studies of natural and sexual selection. Yet, the developmental mechanisms that produce such diversification, and thus the proximate targets of selection pressures, are rarely addressed and poorly understood. In particular, because feathers are colored during growth, the dynamics of feather growth play a deterministic role i...

Variation in avian coloration is produced by coordinated pigmentation of thousands of growing feathers that vary in shape and size. Although the functional consequences of avian coloration are frequently studied, little is known about its developmental basis, and, specifically, the rules that link feather growth to pigment uptake and synthesis. Here, we combine biochemical, modeling, and morpho...

The identification of bird species from feather fragments is useful in many disciplines, including forensic science. Feather evidence can be helpful to criminal investigations in demonstrating physical contact between clothing manufactured with down feathers, or it may provide specific links to the crime scene by identifying the species or group of birds from which the feather evidence came. Th...

Yeast production on hydrolysate is a likely process solution in large-scale ethanol production from lignocellulose. The hydrolysate will be available on site, and the yeast has furthermore been shown to acquire an increased inhibitor tolerance when cultivated on hydrolysate. However, due to over-flow metabolism and inhibition, efficient yeast production on hydrolysate can only be achieved by we...

Fault bars are common stress-induced feather abnormalities that could produce feather damage thus reducing flight performance. For that reason, it has been hypothesized that birds may have evolved adaptive strategies that reduce the costs of fault bars (the ‘fault bar allocation hypothesis’). An untested prediction of this hypothesis is that fault bars in important feathers for flight (wing and...

Defatted corn protein was digested using five different proteases, Alcalase, Trypsin, Neutrase, Protamex and Flavourzyme, in order to produce bile acid binding peptides. Bile acid binding capacity was analyzed in vitro using peptides from different proteases of defatted corn hydrolysate. Some crystalline bile acids like sodium glycocholate, sodium cholate and sodium deoxycholate were individual...