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Chicken feathers: a treasure cove of useful metabolites and value-added products

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Abstract

The poultry industry is one of the major revenue generating industries around the world. This industry generates a lot of wastes including huge amounts of chicken feathers, that are recalcitrant, thus, difficult to dispose of and have a negative environmental impact. The main methods of disposal of feathers are either incineration or dumping them with other waste materials that hinder their biodegradability by soil microorganisms. These methods are energy-intensive and also lead to the loss of valuable protein keratin that forms the major part of chicken feathers. Recently, biodegradation/metabolism of chicken feathers by microorganisms has been considered an excellent alternative for the disposal of keratin waste. Keratin degradation leads to the formation of free amino acids and soluble proteins that are a precursor of many valuable metabolites and value-added products. Thus, the present review deliberated on the importance of chicken feathers and also other keratin waste materials to be considered as an important bio-resource and their complete valorization into high-value chemicals and development of cost-effective technologies to convert poultry wastes into useful products.

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(this figure has been reproduced/adapted from Chaturvedi et al. (2014) with permission from Elsevier)

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Acknowledgements

The authors are also thankful to Department of Biotechnology, Ministry of Science and Technology, Government of India, (Grant no. BT/304/NE/TBP/2012 and BT/PR7333/PBD/26/373/2012). The Fig 2 in the review has been adapted from work “Chaturvedi et al. (2014)”. Reprinted from Biocatalysis and Agricultural Biotechnology, 3, Venkatesh Chaturvedi, Khusboo Bhange, Renu Bhatt, Pradeep Verma, Production of kertinases using chicken feathers as substrate by a novel multifunctional strain of Pseudomonas stutzeri and its dehairing application, 167–174., Copyright (2014), with permission from Elsevier” for its use in the review article and suitable permission for reproduction has been sought from Elsevier. The same has been cited within manuscript as (Li 2019) and in reference as well.

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  1. School of Biotechnology, Institute of Science, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, UP, 221005, India

    Venkatesh Chaturvedi

  2. Bioprocess and Bioenergy Laboratory, Department of Microbiology, Central University of Rajasthan, NH-8, Bandarsindari, Kishangarh, Ajmer, 305817, India

    Komal Agrawal & Pradeep Verma

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  1. Venkatesh Chaturvedi
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Chaturvedi, V., Agrawal, K. & Verma, P. Chicken feathers: a treasure cove of useful metabolites and value-added products. Environmental Sustainability 4, 231–243 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42398-021-00160-2

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