Utilization of chicken feathers for PHA accumulation by bacteria isolated from slaughterhouse soil.

Abstract

The goal of this research is to reduce the high manufacturing costs of PHA and make this polymer truly commercially competitive with products derived from fossil fuels. In the present work, soil samples from bird farms and slaughterhouses were collected to isolate bacterial strains with the potential of utilising chicken feathers as a substrate in powder and hydrolysate form along with glucose for accumulating PHA when grown under nutritively limited media. Based on the colour intensity of stain taken up by the bacterial isolates on the application of Nile red and Sudan black B when grown on agar plates with nutrition-deprived media, 2 out of 30 isolated strains (LS18 and LS33) were qualitatively screened to be potent producers of PHA. LS18 was studied biochemically and physiologically followed by its 16S rRNA sequencing.  Pre-treatment of chicken feathers for preparing hydrolysate and powder was done before its usage in the production media as a substrate for quantitative screening for PHA production. LS18 and LS33 were found to be capable of utilizing chicken feathers in the form of powder as well as hydrolysate.