Abstract

Keratinases are an important group of enzymes with many industrial applications, including the processing of feather residues, feather meal production, detergent, leather and in the pharmaceutical industry. In this chapter the main methods used to detect their activity are described and discussed. Methods to detect and quantify keratinase activity include spectrophotometric analyses with multiple substrates, zymography and SDS-PAGE containing protein substrates. Focus is on the current status of these biochemical analytical methods.