Chapter 13 - Extremophilic carbohydrases: production, application, and challenges in association with food processing

Abstract

Enzymes have a significant role in food processing. Extremozymes are also enzymes obtained from extremophilic microorganisms, which survive at extreme temperature, pH, organic solvents, and salt concentration. Extremophilic enzymes possess higher activity, higher rate of catalysis, better resistance to proteases, and stability when compared to normal enzymes. Extremozymes can be grouped as carbohydrases (e.g., amylases, cellulases, xylanases, pectinases, etc.), proteases, lipases, isomerases, esterases, and dehydrogenases based on mechanism of action and are of great potential in food and agriculture, and chemical, biomedical, and bioprocessing industries. Among all, carbohydrases are extensively used in food processing and demands in food industry are rapidly rising. However, the share of extremophilic carbohydrases in commercial use is still small as the production of extremozymes at large scale is challenging, and their application in the food industry is not fully realized yet.