[Industrial application of lipases]

The ability of lipases to perform specific reactions of transformation (biotransformation) makes these enzymes a useful tool used in many syntheses, for example: in the production of detergents, cosmetics, biosurfactants, in the oil-chemical, paper, dairy, food or pharmaceutical industries. Lipases are ubiquitous enzymes but only lipases produced by microorganisms are important for industrial applications due to their wide variety of properties such as stability in organic solvents, action under mild conditions, high substrate specificity and region- and enantioselectivity, as well as the relatively simple methods of their production in fermentors and recovery from the culture medium. This paper reviews the latest achievements in the production of lipases in the submerged fermentation and solid state fermentation using waste products from the agricultural industry. In addition, new applications of lipases were described, including those for the synthesis of biopolymers and biodiesel and for the production of enantiomeric pharmaceuticals, agrochemicals and flavoring compounds.