Keratinases vis-à-vis conventional proteases and feather degradation

Keratinases degrade feather in presence of a suitable reducing agent. Here we have demonstrated that conventional serine and cysteine proteases (subtilsin, chymotrypsin and papain) which selectively cleave proteins at the hydrophobic P1 residues also degrade feathers in presence of a suitable reducing agent in the form of live cells or chemical reductants. Further, trypsin and pepsin were also shown to degrade feather after cleaving hydrophobic residues of feathers following 2 h pre-treatment by any of the proteases.