Enzymatic Processes in Marine Biotechnology.

Antonio Trincone

doi:10.3390/md15040093

Abstract

In previous review articles the attention of the biocatalytically oriented scientific community towards the marine environment as a source of biocatalysts focused on the habitat-related properties of marine enzymes. Updates have already appeared in the literature, including marine examples of oxidoreductases, hydrolases, transferases, isomerases, ligases, and lyases ready for food and pharmaceutical applications. Here a new approach for searching the literature and presenting a more refined analysis is adopted with respect to previous surveys, centering the attention on the enzymatic process rather than on a single novel activity. Fields of applications are easily individuated: (i) the biorefinery value-chain, where the provision of biomass is one of the most important aspects, with aquaculture as the prominent sector; (ii) the food industry, where the interest in the marine domain is similarly developed to deal with the enzymatic procedures adopted in food manipulation; (iii) the selective and easy extraction/modification of structurally complex marine molecules, where enzymatic treatments are a recognized tool to improve efficiency and selectivity; and (iv) marine biomarkers and derived applications (bioremediation) in pollution monitoring are also included in that these studies could be of high significance for the appreciation of marine bioprocesses.

Highlights

There is enormous interest in marine biotechnology with the worldwide flourishing of editorial initiatives hosting important experimental results and surveys from several projects, especially those belonging to the FP7 program and to the topic “Blue growth”
The focus in many say, the focus in many review articles [7] is on the importance of extremophiles and thermostable review articles [7] is on the importance of extremophiles and thermostable enzymes to overcome enzymes to overcome the limitations of biocatalysts in current bioprocesses for lignocellulosic the limitations of biocatalysts in current bioprocesses for lignocellulosic biomass conversion
3-deoxy-D-manno-oct-2-ulosonic acid (Kdo): a sugar that is difficult to obtain by chemical synthesis and that has applications in medicinal chemistry α-amylase from marine Nocardiopsis sp

Summary

Introduction

There is enormous interest in marine biotechnology with the worldwide flourishing of editorial initiatives (journals, books, etc.) hosting important experimental results and surveys from several projects, especially those belonging to the FP7 program and to the topic “Blue growth”. A deep understanding of the complexity of the marine ecosystem will enable human beings to protect the oceans and organisms populating them, and pave the way for sustainable exploitation of marine resources This knowledge will certainly fuel various applications and itself constitutes the core of marine biotechnology. Spotlighted habitat-related properties from a biochemical point of view, reporting on important examples in bioprocesses Various updates of these former analyses of the literature have recently been published, such as the one by Lima et al 2016 [5] including marine examples of oxidoreductases, hydrolases, transferases, isomerases, ligases and lyases ready for food and pharmaceutical applications. The focus of the literature search is centered on the enzymatic process more than on a single novel activity This survey is developed according to the biotechnological field of applications where bioprocesses, based on marine enzymes and/or marine biomasses, are central. Selected modern review articles are listed under each paragraph to depict the present state of the art of the related field

Literature Search

Biorefinery

Food Applications

Fine Chemistry and Lab Techniques

Sediments and Bioremediation

Others

Conclusions