Enzimi Proteolitici da Microorganismi Isolati Localmente e Loro Potenziali Applicazioni nel Campo dell'industria Tessile, della Detergenza e nella Degradazione di Biomasse Proteiche di Scarto

Responsabili di progetto

Francesco Secundo, Nabil Abd El-basset Ibrahim

Accordo

EGITTO - NRC - National Research Centre of Egypt

Bando

CNR/NRC biennio 2018-2019 2018-2019

Dipartimento

Scienze chimiche e tecnologie dei materiali

Area tematica

Scienze chimiche e tecnologie dei materiali

Stato del progetto

Nuovo

Proposta di ricerca

Biotechnology is identified as the utilization of living organisms or their products in industry. Microbial enzymes are potent biocatalysts which usually catalyze the reactions of hydrolysis, oxidation, or reduction. They exhibited a great attention because of their applications in many industries including cleaning as well as environmental-friendly and coast effective biotechnological processes. Many harmful chemical reactions have been replaced by eco-friendly biological processes due to these biocatalysts (Patel et al., 2017).
Among microbial enzymes, proteases constitute one of the commercially important industrial enzymes, accounting for nearly 60% of the whole enzyme market and are frequently used in detergent, leather, textile, pharmaceuticals, food and biotechnology industries (Mishra, 2016). They form a large group of enzymes belonging to the class of hydrolases which are capable of cleaving peptide bonds of protein to liberate small peptides and amino acids (Sharma et al., 2017). Proteases can be grouped into three types: acid proteases, alkaline proteases, and neutral proteases depending on their pH optima. Moreover, according to the presence of amino acids at the active site, six families of proteases are recognized: serine proteases, threonine proteases, cysteine proteases, aspartic proteases, metallo-proteases, and glutamic acid proteases (Sharma et al., 2017). Keratinases are mostly serine or metallo alkaline proteases capable of degrading keratin protein, a group of fibrous, recalcitrant and abundant structural proteins that constitutes the major structural component of feathers, nail, wool, horns and hooves (Bhange et al., 2016). Keratinases exhibit several important biotechnological applications such as dehairing agent in the leather industry, slow release nitrogen fertilizers, cosmetics and detergent industry (Bhange et al., 2016).
Proteases are also used in textile processing for the removal of the stiff and dull gum layer of sericine from the raw silk fiber leading to its brightness and softness (Ibrahim et al., 2012). The use of protease on wool led to the creation of the desirable properties such as hydrophilic, anti-pilling, anti-shrink, and anti-felting performance, whiteness improvement, and higher dye absorption (Nazari et al., 2016).
Utilization of the organic wastes as substrates for the production of high-value products is now one of the new approaches. Protein-based organic wastes as feathers, wool, hair, and horn are the common keratin waste that can be a source of peptides and amino acids usable in different commercial fields. Proteolytic hydrolysis is one of the most common methods used to generate hydrolysates containing bioactive peptides (Bah et al., 2016). Bioactive peptides are typically short amino acid sequences of between 2-20 amino acid residues, which are generated by the hydrolysis of proteins (Ryan et al., 2011). A variety of bioactive peptides (antimicrobial, antithrombotic, antihypertensive, antioxidant, cyto- or immuno-modulatory, anticoagulant, cholesterol-lowering, etc.), derived from food proteins have been previously identified (Bah et al., 2016; Jemil et al., 2017)

II- References
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Obiettivi della ricerca

The overall goal of the present project is to prepare highly active proteolytic enzymes using different locally isolated microorganisms and investigate their potential applications. To reach this goal, the following objectives will be proposed:

1. Screening of different isolated strains for producing enzymes with proteolytic and keratinolytic properties.
2. Optimization of different parameters for enhanced enzymes production
3. Biochemical characterization of the selected protease and keratinase
4. Bio-modification of protein-based textile materials (e.g wool, silk) by prepared protease and keratinase.
5. Application the selected protease and keratinase as biodetergent additive for degradation of proteinaceous stains.
6. Application of the selected protease and keratinase to degrade feather keratin and/or any other proteinaceous wastes and characterization of the separated peptide fractions and amino acids in the hydrolysate of proteinaceous wastes.
7. Evaluation of the bioactivity of separated peptide fractions as antibacterial, antioxidant, etc agents.

In order to carry high-throughput screening of microbes that produce keratinases, it is also planned to develop analytical methods based on the use of commercially available fluorogenic peptides for the assay of the catalytic activity of keratinases.

Ultimo aggiornamento: 12/06/2025