A Review on Catabolic Activity of Microorganisms in Leather Industry

A tremendously diverse group of microorganisms originated from animal skins/hides, animals' feces, preservation salt, dust, barn, water, air, soil, feed have been found on salted hides/skins. Growth and catabolic activities of these microorganisms have been supported by high organic and inorganic contents of salted hides/skins. As known, detail examination of catabolic activities of microorganisms offers an important information about their critical roles on hide/skin biodegradation. The goal of this review is to summarize experimental results of the previous studies to understand biodegradation capabilities of the microorganisms isolated from leather industry. Catabolic activities of microorganisms belonging to non-halophilic bacteria, moderately halophilic bacteria, extremely halophilic archaea and the members of family Enterobacteriaceae were summarized in the present study. The characterization of these microorganisms was performed according to molecular methods, conventional biochemical tests in the previous studies. Examination of research articles showed that aerobic microorganisms isolated from salted hides/skins produced protease, caseinase, lipase, β-galactosidase, amylase, cellulase, DNase, lecithinase and urease. Moreover, the isolates produced acid from different carbon sources, reduced nitrate to nitrite, produced NH3 from peptone, decarboxylated different amino acids found in hides/skins. These studies demonstrated that salted hides/skins had a wide diversity of microorganisms which have different catabolic activities to breakdown carbon and energy sources for their growth.