Study of Keratinolytic Activity of Thermophilic

Figure: 7 Degradation of feather by S. viridis

utilizing feathers as sole source of carbon and nitrogen

with keratinolytic enzyme. The blue colour developed in

the flask confirmed the growth of SJ-21 due to production

of blue green pigment. (Figure-6)

This kind of results were also reported for Bacillus sp.

(Patil, C. et al., 2010), for Bacillus licheniformis MZK-

3 (Mohammad et al., , 2007), for Bacillus licheniformis

(Yasuhiko, T. 2004)), for Nocardiopsis sp . TOA-1

(Mitsuiki, S., et al., 2002), for Streptomyces sp . Strain

16 (Xie, F. et al., 2010), for Streptomyces albidoflavus

(Bressollier, P. et al., 1999), Streptomyces pactum

(Böckle, B. and Müller, R. 1997, Böckle, B. et al., 1995),

for Streptomyces gulbagensis (Syed, D.G., et al., 2009),

for Streptomyces thermoviolaceus (Chitte, R. et al .,1999).

It was observed that feathers were completely degraded

not only by organism but also by partially purified

Figure 8. Photograph showing feather degradation

protease of S. viridis SJ-21 (Figure 8).

The result obtained confirms the use of the keratinolytic

The degraded sample was sent to NDDB Anand, Gujarat

activity of the organism in feed industry (Böckle, B.

for amino acid analysis by HPLC- fluorescence with post

and Müller, R., 1997). Thus the use of S. viridis SJ-

column derivetization. It was observed that S.viridis SJ-

21 as keratinolytic agent may serve dual purpose for

21 released most of all amino acids from the feathers. The

degradation of poultry waste and production of aminoacid

maximum aminoacid released were tyrosine (21.65 μg/

rich feed supplement. Reports of keratinase activity of

ml), Followed by p henylalanine (19.74 μg/ml), leucine

the actinomycetes are as follows: Streptomyces pactum

(13.35 μg/ml), valine (13.45 μg/ml), cysteine (7.56 μg/

DSM 40530, serine protease having molecular mass 30

ml), arginine (6.67 μg/ml), methionine (6.37 μg/ml), etc

KDa, active at pH 7 to 10, was reported by Böckle et

(Table 1). Results indicated that, organism was efficient

al.,. (Böckle,B., et al., 1995). Streptomyces albidoflavus

for degrading feathers with significant amount of amino

K1-02, serine protease having molecular mass 18 KDa,

acid release at 45°C (to make the process economic, we

active at pH 6 to 9.5, reported by Bressolier et al., (1999).

incubated the tubes at 45°C ).

Chitte et al., (1999) reported an actinomycete strain

Streptomyces thermoviolaceus that can grow and degrade

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