Identification of keratinase producing bacteria isolated from soil of Mashhad countryside

Using microorganism kerationolytic enzymes, feather which has a significant amount of keratin, can be degrade to protein subunits. The protease keratinases mainly attack disulfide bonds. These enzymes are produced by var-ious microorganisms such as fungi and and bacteria isolated for various purposes including pharmaceutical and biomedical fields, dehairing in the leather industry, textile industry, agricultural fertilizers and detergents. Two keratinolytic strains isolated from soil of suburbs of Mashhad (FUM-1 and FUM-2) were cultured in medium containing feather and salt (NaCl, MgCl2, K2HPO4, KH2PO4). The strains were identified and the keratinase ac-tivity was measured qualitatively and quantatively with chicken feather powder. The strains were identified based on the biochemical, morphological and molecular properties using 16SrRNA. According to Blast sequences in the database Eztaxon, FUM-1 was identified as Bacillus mojavensis RO-H-1 with 99.9% similarity and FUM-2 showed 99.2% homology with Bacillus licheniformis ATCC. The enzyme activity for the FUM-1 and FUM-2 strains was determined (8.96 U/min/ml) and (9.31 U/min/ml), respectively. This study shows the ability of these strains for bioremediation of poultry waste and also the production of amino acids from cheap raw materials

Keywords:

keratinase , identification , Bacillus , enzyme activity