In vitro bioprocessing of corn as poultry feed additive by the influence of carbohydrate hydrolyzing metagenome derived enzyme cocktail

The carbohydrate-hydrolyzing enzymes play a crucial role in increasing the phenolic content and nutritional properties of polysaccharides substrate, essential for cost-effective industrial applications. Also, improving the feed efficiency of poultry is essential to achieve significant economic benefits. The current study introduced a novel thermostable metagenome-derived xylanase named PersiXyn8 and investigated its synergistic effect with previously reported α-amylase (PersiAmy3) to enhance poultry feed utilization. The potential of the enzyme cocktail in the degradation of poultry feed was analyzed and showed 346.73 mg/g poultry feed reducing sugar after 72 h of hydrolysis. Next, the impact of solid-state fermentation on corn quality was investigated in the presence and absence of enzymes. The phenolic content increased from 36.60 mg/g GAE in control sample to 68.23 mg/g in the presence of enzymes. In addition, the enzyme-treated sample showed the highest reducing power OD 700 of 0.217 and the most potent radical scavenging activity against ABTS (40.36%) and DPPH (45.21%) radicals. Moreover, the protein and ash contents of the fermented corn increased by 4.88% and 6.46%, respectively. These results confirmed the potential of the carbohydrate-hydrolyzing enzymes cocktail as a low-cost treatment for improving the phenolic content, antioxidant activity, and nutritional values of corn for supplementation of corn-based poultry feed.