This paper assesses the ability of strains of Aphanoascus fulvescens and Chrysosporium articulatum isolated from soil (phaesol) to degrade native feather keratin. Strains were identified based on phenotypic traits and nucleotide sequencing. Response Surface Methodology was used to optimize cultivation conditions exhibiting the highest keratinolytic activity. The experiments were based on Box-Be...

Poultry farms produce huge quantities of feather waste that causes serious local disposal and accumulative problems and results in environmental pollution. Feathers are composed of β-keratin rich protein and are highly resistant to degradation. The feather degradation potential of the non-pathogenic fungus Onygena corvina was investigated by cultivating this fungus in a medium with duck feather...

A keratinolytic protease, secreted as the major component by a feline clinical isolate of Microsporum canis cultivated in a minimal medium containing cat keratin, was purified by affinity chromatography on bacitracin agarose and gel filtration. The apparent molecular mass of the enzyme was 31.5 kDa and the pI was 11.8. The enzyme was not glycosylated and its first 15 N-terminal amino acids show...

The present study was aimed at isolating a potential keratinase producing bacteria from chicken feathers collected from poultry waste sites in and around Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, and optimising the parameters for the enzyme production. The strain was identified as Bacillus licheniformis KMBVP based on 16srRNA gene sequencing. The strain showed high keratinolytic activity when cultured in feather...

The Chryseobacterium sp. kr6 strain has been described as a highly keratinolytic bacterium showing effective feather-degrading and de-hairing activities. A keratinase Q1 enzyme was purified from Chryseobacterium sp. kr6 culture by Phenyl Sepharose and Superose 12HR chromatography. This enzyme showed a specific activity of 967U/mg for keratin azure. Electrophoresis under denaturing conditions sh...

The effect of onion and garlic extracts on fungal growth and keratinolytic activity was studied in Trichophyton mentagrophytes as one of the major etiologic agents of human and animal dermatophytosis in Iran and other parts of the world. In order to find out the best keratinase producer for further steps, culture conditions for 30 strains of T. mentagrophytes isolated from human dermatophytosis...

A fungal isolate with capability to grow in keratinous substrate as only source of carbon and nitrogen was identified as Aspergillus niger using the sequencing of the ITS region of the rDNA. This strain produced a slightly acid keratinase and an acid protease during cultivation in feather meal. The peak of keratinolytic activity occurred in 48 h and the maximum proteolytic activity in 96 h. The...

A survey of Microsporum gypseum was conducted in soil samples in different geographical regions of Brazil. The isolation of dermatophyte from soil samples was performed by hair baiting technique and the species were identified by morphology studies. We analyzed 692 soil samples and the recuperating rate was 19.2%. The activities of keratinase and elastase were quantitatively performed in 138 sa...

Chicken feathers are valuable solid waste that mainly contains insoluble proteins called keratin. Naturally, keratin is degraded by microbes produce a specific protease keratinase. Many reports have been addressed to study Bacillus species as keratin-degrading microbes. However, most reported works were using pathogenic soil Bacillus. Our work has concentrated on keratinase produced bacterium, ...

BACKGROUND Extensive quantities of keratinic by-products are disposed annually by animal-processing industry, causing a mounting ecological problem due to extreme resilience of these materials to enzymatic breakdown. There is a growing trend to apply cheap and environment-friendly methods to recycle keratinic wastes. Soil bacteria of profound keratinolytic potential, especially spore-forming ro...