Expression of keratinase gene in Bacillus megaterium using an expression vector of pHIS1525.SPlipA and utilization of the resulting recombinant strain for chicken feather degradation prior to biogas production

An increasing quantity of chickens is being utilized annually in the poultry industry, producing a huge volume of chicken feather waste which presents a high quality supply of keratin. Keratinases possessing high level of keratinolytic activity on insoluble keratin play a crucial role in hydrolyzing chicken feathers. Ever since the discovery of proteolytic ability as well as water solubility of keratinase, many industrial processes regarding keratinase application have been developed. A recently invented application to handle poultry waste is to utilize feathers for biogas production. Obviously, large amount of keratinase is required to break down the keratin prior to further conversion to biogas. Previously, several researches have shown that certain bacteria are able to produce keratinase but it is still a challenge to find out which bacteria is the most reliable source for the production with high efficiency. These challenges gave rise to the molecular biologists to bring the focus on gene cloning to develop recombinant strains resulting in overproduction of keratinase. Over the course of various cloning and expression experiments of similar proteins, it was found that Bacillus megaterium could be a susceptible host cell for keratinase production.