Keratin Degrading Microbial Keratinase as a Tool for Bioremediation

Abstract

Most of the hard-to-degrade keratin containing substrates like feathers or animal hairs is either discarded or incinerated, resulting in energy consumption and environmental pollution. Thus, an innovative eco-friendly method to deal with these wastes is urgently needed. Microbial degradation of keratin by keratinases has gained biotechnological interest in applications and represents a great opportunity to manage waste materials with no adverse impacts. This article deals with the importance of keratinase and its ongoing applications that can be further used in future to sustain environment.

Community-intrinsic properties enhance keratin degradation from bacterial consortia

“…Keratin has potentially high nutritional value, as it contains 2-5% sulphur, 15-18% nitrogen, 3.2% mineral elements, 1.3% fat and 90% protein [16,19,20]. Decomposition products can therefore be made utilisable in the production of animal feed [18,21]. Nevertheless, conventional keratin treatment prior to incorporation into animal feed relies on expensive and thermo-chemically harsh procedures, yielding a poor product quality with non-digestible molecules [22][23][24][25][26].…”