Traditional use of enzymes for food processing and production of food ingredients resulted in fast-growing enzyme industries world over. The advances in technologies gave rise to exploring newer enzymes and/or modified enzymes for specific application. Search for novel enzymes that can augment catalytic efficiency and advances in molecular biology techniques including sequencing has targeted microbial diversity through metagenomic approaches for sourcing enzymes from difficult to culture organisms. Such mining studies have received more attention in characterizing hydrolases, their prevalence, broad substrate specificities, stability, and independence of cofactors. The focus on glycosyl hydrolases from metagenome for their application in food sector is reviewed.

The long-established use of enzymes for food processing and product formulation has resulted in an increased enzyme market compounding to 7.0% annual growth rate. Advancements in molecular biology and recognition that enzymes with specific properties have application for industrial production of infant, baby and functional foods boosted research toward sourcing the genes of microorganisms for enzymes with distinctive properties. In this regard, functional metagenomics for extremozymes has gained attention on the premise that such enzymes can catalyze specific reactions. Hence, metagenomics that can isolate functional genes of unculturable extremophilic microorganisms has expanded attention as a promising tool. Developments in this field of research in relation to food sector are reviewed.

Western Ghats of India is recognized as one of the 12 mega diversity regions of the world and is the hot spot for unrevealed microbial diversity. To explore the diversity of polysaccharide degrading enzymes in that region, metagenomic library was constructed from forest soil of Southern Western Ghats region. Nine pectinolytic clones with the ability to degrade citrus pectin were isolated based on function based screening of the library. Sequence analysis of pg_4 clone containing revealed that it contained GH family 28 domain (pfam00295) belonging to polygalacturonase superfamily (PLN03003). Its amino acid sequence analysis showed 25-55 % identity to the other well-characterized polygalacturonases. Molecular modeling of pg_4 revealed that it comprised of three right handed-parallel β sheets, one anti-parallel β sheet and one α helix with three conserved catalytic residue D 2263, D 284-85 and H 312 at the C terminal end. The enzyme characterized was able to hydrolyze both apple and citrus pectin with K m values of 1.685 and 1.542 mg ml(-1) and retained more that 80 % of activity at pH 5-9 and temperature 20-60 °C.