Species degrading wool

Biological Degradation. Wool may be targeted by a variety of keratinophilic bacteria and fungi, which break down the component proteins via enzymatic oxidation, reduction or hydrolysis this type of attack predominantly tends to occur in the amorphous regions, particularly in the cuticle. Wool fibres are also susceptible to attack by several species of moths and beetles. 

Pure cultures are obtained from a commercial or private culture collection for these studies. Shrivastava eta/. [23] surveyed 10 fungal isolates to see which would degrade wool. Pranamuda and Tokiwa [50] obtained 25 strains of Amycolatopsis and tested their abilities to degrade poly(L-lactide). Ohkawa et al. [22] used seven fungal species to study the biodegradation of chitosan-gellan and poly(L-lysine)-gellan. 

The actual oxidizing species present depends on pH and is either chlorine or hypochlorous acid (HOCl). Apparently, the hypochlorous acid is the more active species on hair given that degradation is greater at lower pH. Although the chemistry of these interactions was not examined, one would expect disulfide bond cleavage and peptide bond fission similar to the effects shown for the reaction of chlorine and wool fiber [42]. 

Wool damage may start already before sheep shearing that is in the fleece, where favorable nntritive (sebaceous matters, wax, and epithelium), temperature, aeration and humidity conditions are formed. Contrary to mieroorganisms damaging plant fibers, the wool microflora is versatile, generally represented by species typical of the soil and degrading plant residues. 

---