Abstracto

Keratinolytic bacteria isolated from chick fecal waste

Muthusamy Govarthanan, Thangasamy Selvan Kumar, S.Arun Prakash, K.Manoharan

The aim of this work to characterize keratinolytic bacteria isolated from chick fecal waste. Ten isolates were selected after growth on solid medium with feather meal as carbon and nitrogen source. They were screened for keratinolytic activity on milk Agar plates. All the ten isolates were gram positive (Bacillus Sp). The bacteria grew on wastes of keratin such as, raw feather, Feather meal.Keratinolytic activity was determined during growth, proteolytic character of crude enzyme was assessed using keratin azure as substrate. The keratinase was highly active on the substrate. The keratinolytic isolates have potential biotechnological use in process involving keratin hydrolysis.