Collagen and collagenolytic proteases: A review

Despite of having enormous applications, the use of collagen is predominantly limited because of its high cost. Most of the mammalian sources used for its production have major drawbacks. However, compared to mammalian sources, fish waste can be utilized as cost-effective alternative to produce collagen. Around 75% part of fish is discarded as a waste which contains high concentration of collagen. Fish collagen has multiple advantages over mammalian collagen and hence can be a promising alternative for it. Proteases with collagenolytic activities are also of immense importance because of their industrial as well as biological applications. Microbial collagenolytic proteases are gaining huge attention in these days because of their lower requirements and higher productivity. They perform important role in global recycling of collagenous waste. This review gives recent information on collagen and collagenolytic proteases. Here, utilization of seafood by-products is discussed to recover the collagen and its recent applications are summarized. In addition to this, current review also highlights the recent status of collagenases in which present strategies and new technology used for the isolation, screening, production optimization, purification, characterization and applications of microbial collagenases are discussed.