Tannases: Production, properties, applications

Microbial tannases are industrially important enzymes belong to the family of esterases which catalyze the generation of gallic acid and glucose by the degradation of polyphenolic compounds such as tannins. In spite of wastewater treatment and gallic acid production, tannases have wide application in the processing of food, beverage and animal feed. For tannase production, tannins containing low-value agro-industrial wastes are being extensively used in industries. Downstream processing of tannase through conventional methods is cheaper, but have lower purification fold of tannase, whereas advanced methods like ion exchange and size exclusion chromatography provide high purification. Tannases have a vast molecular weight range 31-310 kDa, furthermore, they have much stability to work in broad ranges of pH (3-10) and temperature (30-70 degrees C). An overview of production, downstream processing, properties, applications and recent advances of tannase is discussed in this review.