Isolation, identification, and characterization of keratinase enzyme producing bacteria, collected from tannery soil

Abstract

Keratin rich waste by-products from animal skin and other parts are being produced every year in a huge amount. These wastes are required to be degraded. Otherwise, it can become a hazardous to the environment. This study focuses to find potential bacteria from the soil sample of leather manufacturing industry located at Hazaribagh of Dhaka City, which can produce keratinase enzyme to degrade the keratin wastes. 16 individual colonies of bacteria were selected to observe the keratinolytic activity of those bacteria. Those bacteria were inoculated in minimal salt media and tested with chicken feathers onto it and results were observed with the changes in the smoothness and degradation of the feather. Only 8 bacterial colonies showed changes after keeping the solution in rotatory shaker incubator. Changes in the feather were assumed to be keratin degradation. To verify the degradation of keratin, the absorbance of the optical density of keratinolytic assay was observed of those bacteria. Different biochemical tests were done for the identification of the bacteria and the process was done with different temperature and pH separately for optimization of the experiment. Finally, extraction of DNA of those bacteria was done, along with the PCR (Polymerase Chain Reaction) to get the potential bacteria for further research.