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Bioconversion of feather waste into bioactive nutrients in water by Bacillus licheniformis WHU

  • Biotechnological Products and Process Engineering
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Abstract

Feathers become hazardous pollutants when deposited directly into the environment. The rapid expansion of the poultry industry has significantly increased feather waste, necessitating the development of new ways to degrade and utilize feathers. This study investigated the ability of Bacillus licheniformis WHU to digest intact chicken feathers in water. The results indicated that yields of free amino acids, bioactive peptides, and keratin-derived nano-/micro-particles were improved in bacteria- versus purified keratinase–derived feather hydrolysate. Bacteria-derived feather hydrolysate supplementation induced health benefits in mice, including significantly increased intestinal villus height and zonula occludens-1 protein expression, as well as increased secretory immunoglobulin A levels in the intestinal mucosa and superoxide dismutase activity in serum. Additionally, feather hydrolysate supplementation modulated the mouse gut microbiota, reflected by increased relative abundance of probiotics such as Lactobacillus spp., decreased relative abundance of Proteobacteria at the phylum level and pathogens such as Staphylococcus spp., and increased Bacteroidota/Firmicutes ratio. This study developed a simple, cost-effective method to degrade feathers by B. licheniformis WHU digestion, yielding a hydrolysate that can be directly used as a bioactive nutrient resource. The study findings have applications in the livestock, poultry, and aquaculture industries, which have high demands for cheap protein.

Key points

• Bacillus licheniformis could degrade intact feather in water.

• The resulting feather hydrolysate shows prebiotic effects on mouse.

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Data availability

The sequencing data were deposited in the National Center for Biotechnology Information database under accession number PRJNA885586.

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Funding

This work was funded by the Collaborative Fund of Science and Technology Agency of the Luzhou Government and Southwest Medical University (No. 2020LZXNYDJ29) and the Nature Science Fund Project of Southwest Medical University (No. 2021ZKMS045).

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Author notes

  1. Jing Zhang, Manyu Liang and Lijuan Wu contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Pharmacy, Southwest Medical University, Luzhou, 646000, Sichuan, China

    Jing Zhang, Manyu Liang, Yanhong Yang, Yingjie Sun, Qin Wang & Xiaowei Gao

  2. Department of Endocrinology, The Affiliated Traditional Chinese Medicine Hospital of Southwest Medical University, Luzhou, 646000, Sichuan, China

    Lijuan Wu

  3. Dazhou Vocational College of Chinese Medicine, Tongchuan District, Luojiang Town, Dazhou, 635000, China

    Qin Wang & Xiaowei Gao

  4. Green Pharmaceutical Technology Key Laboratory of Luzhou, Southwest Medical University, Luzhou, 646000, Sichuan, China

    Xiaowei Gao

Authors
  1. Jing Zhang
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Contributions

Study design and investigation, data collection, and analysis: JZ, ML, and LW; Investigation: YY, YS; writing and revision: QW; study design, funding, data analysis, and writing: XG. All authors have read and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Qin Wang or Xiaowei Gao.

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Ethics statement

The animal experiments in this study were approved and supervised by the Ethics Committee of Southwest Medical University with a permit number 20220301–013, and conducted following the Guidelines for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals of Southwest Medical University (Luzhou, China).

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Zhang, J., Liang, M., Wu, L. et al. Bioconversion of feather waste into bioactive nutrients in water by Bacillus licheniformis WHU. Appl Microbiol Biotechnol 107, 7055–7070 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-023-12795-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-023-12795-8

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