FIRST REPORT ON SCREENING OF KERATINOLYTIC BACTERIA FROM SOIL SAMPLES OF POULTRY WASTE DUMP SITES OF WIDE DELHI-NCR REGION

Shruti Sinha*, Vandana Shrivastava and Abhishek Mathur

ABSTRACT

Keratin is an insoluble and fibrous structural protein that is a constituent of feathers and wool. The protein is abundantly available as a by-product. The degradative product represents a valuable source of proteins and amino acids that could be useful for animal feeds or as a source of nitrogen for plants. However, the keratin-containing substrates and materials have high mechanical stability and hence are difficult to be degraded by common proteases. The present study involves the isolation of feather-degrading bacterial cultures isolated from soil samples of poultry waste dump sites of New Delhi. About 10 samples of soil were collected from various places of Delhi (Old Delhi railway station; Rohini West; Chandni Chowk; Ghazipur Mandi), Ghaziabad (Old Ghaziabad; Pratap Vihar) and Noida (Sector -4; 15; 53; 137) of Delhi-NCR region. The isolation of bacterial cultures was performed on Nutrient agar. The pure cultures were separately isolated in sterilized conditions and were maintained as glycerol stock for further use. The results showed the isolation of 25 pure bacterial cultures from soil samples. These bacterial cultures were able to grown in media with keratin/feathers as the carbon and nitrogen source. Further these bacterial strains were screened for keratinase production on keratin-agar plates. Amongst, 25 bacterial cultures, 12 bacterial cultures were found positive for keratinase production. These bacterial cultures were interpreted as keratinophilic bacterial straisn. Thus these 12 bacterial cultures were considered for the study and the reference codes were allotted to such bacterial cultures, NCFT/KB/101 to NCFT/KB/112. These bacterial cultures were further morphologically and biochemically identified and were screened for gram staining. The present study is the first kind of study ever reported on the isolation and screening of bacterial cultures for keratinase production from soil samples of poultry waste dump sites of wide Delhi-NCR region.

Keywords: Bacterial strains, poultry waste dump sites, keratinase production, keratinolytic, Delhi-NCR region.