Microbial lipases and their applications in the food industry

The role of enzymes, particularly to lipases, has been expanding in the food industry. Out of all industrialized catalysts, lipase is one of the major hydrolytic enzymes which helps in the assortment of bioconversion procedures which gives about 10% of the worldwide enzyme. However, enzymes are fragile biomolecules and their functionality will be hampered in the industrial setting. The free enzymes are not utilized commercially because of their certain disadvantages like nonreutilization, unsteadiness, and high expenses and also show high sensitivity against different reactants. So, the demand for genetically modified and immobilized enzymes has been increased, as they improve the steadiness of the enzyme, high exchange rate of reactants, and effortless retrieval of enzymes under various response conditions. Immobilized lipases have attained the considerations of different companies because of their diversity, stability, reusability, and versatility; all these were the major concern for industrial applications. Lipase catalyzed both esterification as well as transesterification reaction in nonaqueous media. Lipase isolated from microbes is the ideal source of enzyme and it has a broad range of substrate particularity, high catalytic efficiency, and cost-effective production of enzyme as compared to the animal and plant lipases. This chapter is mainly focused on the microbial lipases and their significant role in the food sector.