Lipases Essay

Introduction:

The use of enzymes can be traced to ancient civilizations. Nearly 4000 enzymes are known today but still very few are in commercial use. Most of the industrial enzymes are of microbial origin. Total market sales of the enzymes was only a few millions till 1960 but then market has grown dramatically and demand for the enzymes is growing day by day(Wilke, 1999). Improved understanding of production biochemistry, fermentation processes, and recovery methods has resulted in the production of many enzymes in an affordable manner. Advances in methods of using enzymes have greatly increased demand. Furthermore, because of the many different transformations that enzymes can catalyze, the number of enzymes used in commerce continues to multiply.

3.1.1.3) are triacyl glycerol acylhydrolases and belong to the class of serine hydrolases. Lipases catalyze a variety of chemical reactions which are found in a wide range including animals, plants and microorganisms (Jaeger and Eggert, 2002). Lipases catalyze both the synthesis of esters from glycerol and long chain fatty acids and the hydrolysis of triacylglycerols into fatty acids, partial acylglycerols and glycerol. Lipases are unique in catalyzing the hydrolysis of fats into fatty acids and glycerol at the water-lipid interface and reversing the reaction in non-aqueous media. The enzyme conformation changes when it contacts with a water-insoluble substrate.

Microbial lipases are often more stable and their production is convenient and safer (Wiseman, 1995). Fungal lipases are favorable enzymes for the industrial production(Fontana et al., 2004). Lipases are having many applications such as detergents which can carry out washing even at lower temperatures, food processing industries, the synthesis of chemicals, pharmaceuticals, paper industry, production of cosmetics (Kazlauskas and Bornscheuer, 1998), health foods, degreasing, beverages