Dermatophytes are keratinophilic fungi that can be pathogenic for humans and animals by infecting the stratum corneum, nails, claws or hair. The first infection step consists of adherence of arthroconidia to the stratum corneum. The mechanisms and the kinetics of adherence have been investigated using different in vitro and ex vivo experimental models, most notably showing the role of a secrete...

An efficient keratinolytic strain of Stenorophomonas maltophilia KB13 was isolated from feather disposal site of Bilaspur, Chhattisgarh, India. The strain could metabolize 10 g/l chicken feathers as sole source of carbon and nitrogen. Soluble protein, amino acid, and cysteine content were found to be maximum (690.6 ± 8.7, 688.9 ± 9.12 and 21 ± 0.36 µg/ml, respectively) at late logarithmic phase...

Every year, the size of human population grows; with it, need for agricultural products increases. This leads to an increment in volume waste, including hard-to-degrade keratin-rich ones, such as feathers. Currently, most agro-industrial complex protein by-products are utilized by incineration, landfilling, and chemical hydrolysis. Such methods do not meet modern trends development a sustainabl...

Sewage sludge was examined for keratinolytic and keratinophilic fungi by means of a multi-temperature (23, 26, 29, 33, 37 and 45oC) hair baiting method. Results indicate that this method can be a useful tool for determination of the influence of temperature and other factors on fungal composition in sludge and evaluation of health risk posed by fungal pathogens. The use of the method facilitate...

The Soil supports a range of microorganisms and is one of the most complex microbial habitats, allowing the fungi to sustain their entire life cycle. Soil is a cosmopolitan habitat for majority of microbial population that can be explored to find out more specific fungal flora.1 The soils rich in keratinous material were found to more conducive for keratinophilic fungi2−11 where this group of f...

soil is well known to support the transient or ongoing existence of kerathophilic fungi and potential sources of infection for humans and animals. fifty soil samples were collected from various areas of forests and farmyards at golestan province in the north part of iran to determine the prevalence of keratinophilic fungi and dominant species. a total of 357 fungal colonies including 13 genera ...

Dehairing is one of the highly polluting operations in the leather industry. The conventional lime-sulfide process used for dehairing produces large amounts of sulfide, which poses serious toxicity and disposal problems. This operation also involves hair destruction, a process that leads to increased chemical oxygen demand (COD), biological oxygen demand (BOD), and total suspended solid (TSS) l...