Marine enzymes lipases

Use of Enzymes Lipases are widely used in the processing of fats and oils as catalysts of a number of important lipid reactions, such as hydrolysis, esterification, and transesterification reactions (174). There are a wide number of lipases obtained from different sources, which are available commercially in their free/ crude or immobilized form. However, enzymes with a higher tolerance of pressure would be welcomed, and more research is needed to hopefully develop such enzymes (i.e., genetic engineering or marine sources of the deep ocean). 

Bohenin occurs as a white to light tan, waxy solid. It is a triglyceride containing behenic acid at the 1- and 3-positions and oleic acid at the 2-position. Behenic acid is a saturated fatty acid that occurs naturally in peanuts, most seed fats, animal milk fat, and marine oils. It is produced by the interesterification of triolein and ethyl behenate in the presence of a suitable lipase enzyme preparation. It melts at approximately 52°. It is insoluble in water soluble in hexane, in chloroform, and in acetone and slightly soluble in hot ethanol. 

Microbial lipases from Aspergillus niger (AN), Candida cylindracea (CC), Pseudomonas spp. (PS), Chromobacterium viscosum (CV), Rhizopus delemer (RD), and Rhizopus javanicus (RJ) have been widely used in modifying PUFA-rich oils (117). The fatty acid specificity of lipases (discrimination of PUFA over short-chain fatty acids) is a crucial factor when considering the application of enzymes to modify marine oils rich in PUFA (118-121). Lipases from Rhizopus spp are known to be 1,3-position specific (122). Wanasundara (79) and Wanasundara and Shahidi (123, 124) (seal blubber oil SBO and menhaden oil MHO) and Tanaka et al. (117)... 

Information on the hydrolytic activity in marine sediments has been obtained from the use of model substrates labeled with fluorescent dyes such as methylumbelliferone (MUF) or fluorescein. These substrates may be small dimeric molecules, the hydrolytic cleavage of which releases the fluorescence signal, which is then indicative of the activity of specific enzymes such as glucosidase, chitobiase, lipase, ami-nopeptidase or esterase (Chrost 1991). Also large fluorescently labeled polymers such as the polysaccharides laminarin or pullulan have been used in experiments to demonstrate the mechanism and kinetics of bacterial degradation (Amosti 1996). 

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