Epoxide hydrolases are attractive and industrially important biocatalysts. They can catalyze the enantioselective hydrolysis of epoxides to the corresponding diols as chiral building blocks for bioactive compounds and drugs. In this review article, we discuss the state of the art and development potential of epoxide hydrolases as biocatalysts based on the most recent approaches and techniques. The review covers new approaches to discover epoxide hydrolases using genome mining and enzyme metagenomics, as well as improving enzyme activity, enantioselectivity, enantioconvergence, and thermostability by directed evolution and a rational design. Further improvements in operational and storage stabilization, reusability, pH stabilization, and thermal stabilization by immobilization techniques are discussed in this study. New possibilities for expanding the synthetic capabilities of epoxide hydrolases by their involvement in non-natural enzyme cascade reactions are described.

In this review, we collected and presented evidence from the scientific literature regarding the biotechnological production and applications of limonene and its oxidative derivates in various fields such as food, pharmaceutical, cosmetic or polymer industries. Limonene biotransformations may be regarded as biotechnological processes aligned to sustainable development. Advantages associated with these bioprocesses include the use of by-products as raw materials, mild reaction conditions, high regio- and stereoselectivity and the production of value-added products. The biological activities of limonene and its oxidative derivates, such as carveol, carvone, limonene-1,2-diol, α‑terpineol, or perillyl alcohol, suggest that the terpene biotechnology is becoming a promising and prosperous science.