Archaeal lipolytic enzymes: Current developments and further prospects

Lipolytic enzymes include triacylglycerol lipases (EC 3.1.1.3) and esterases (EC 3.1.1.1) that catalyze the cleavage and formation of ester bonds. They are potential industrial biocatalysts because of their broad range of activities on natural and synthetic substrates, high stability in organic solvents, thermal stability, stability in highly acidic and alkaline pH conditions and enantio-, regio-and chemo-selectivity. They also have varied ap-plications in different sectors, among which industrial biotechnology, the production of cleaning agents, and pharmaceuticals are the most important ones. Identifying extremophilic lipolytic enzymes is of paramount in-terest and is a growing field in academic and industrial research. This review is focused on the current knowledge and future avenues of investigation on lipolytic enzymes sourced from the underexploited archaeal domain. Archaea is a potential source for novel extremophilic enzymes, which have high demand in the industries. The archaeal lipases and esterases are clustered into different families based on their similarity/dissimilarity at the genetic level and protein structures. The updated information on characterized and putative lipase sequences has also been presented in this paper. Common structural scaffolds of archaeal lipases have been deduced and dis-cussed in this review. However, huge diversity at the level of their genetic sequences has yet to be correlated with the structure-function relationship. Based on their biochemical properties, possible applications and future prospective of archaeal lipolytic enzymes have also been proposed.

Automated summary

This article discusses the importance of lipolytic enzymes in various industries and focuses on the current knowledge and future research directions of underexploited lipolytic enzymes sourced from the archaeal domain, as well as the structure and homology of archaeal lipases and esterases.