Fecal Material of Captive Wild Animals as Source of CAZymes With Application Potential

Gastrointestinal systems of mammals and birds host taxonomically complex and functionally diverse microbial communities. Microbial activities contribute to community functioning and interaction with the host but can also be exploited as a source of novel enzymes or other industrially relevant microbial traits. With the overall goal to identify new resources for carbohydrate‐active enzymes (CAZymes), we bioprospected fecal microbial communities of the little‐explored source of captive wild animals. Using dbcan3, we identified a CAZyome dominated by glycosyl hydrolases (GHs) specialized in degrading oligo‐ and polysaccharides with much lower diversity and abundance of glycosyl transferases, carboxyl esterases, polysaccharide lyases, and redox enzymes with auxiliary activity. CAZyome profiles differed between animals depending on gut physiology and diet. Crude cell extracts conferred hydrolytic activity against compositionally and structurally diverse polysaccharides and nitrophenyl‐sugar analogs. We identified five candidate GH68 and GH70 enzymes with the potential to produce oligo‐ and polysaccharides from sucrose, highlighting that fecal metagenomes are a source of rare CAZymes with industrial relevance. Taken together, we exemplify the functional potential captive wild animal fecal microbiota and suggest such a gene pool as a largely untapped resource for the discovery of novel biotechnological applications.