Psychrophilic yeasts and their biotechnological applications - A review

Abstract

More than 70% of earth’s surface is covered by cold ecosystems and these ecosystems have been colonized by a class of extremophilic microorganisms called as psychrophiles. Thus psychrophiles are true extremophiles that has the ability to live in extremely low temperature conditions. Psychrophilic yeasts are important due to their physiological adaptation at low temperature and they have potential application in biotechnology. Psychrophilic yeast produces cold-active enzymes having numerous applications in textile, medical and pharmaceuticals, fine chemical synthesis, food industry, domestic and environmental applications. Psychrophilic enzymes from yeast have attracted attention of researchers to explore the new application of these enzymes because of their high activity at low and moderate temperatures. The present review describes various immune biotechnological applications of different cold-active enzymes produced by psychrophilic yeast in different industries.

Keywords: Extremophilic microorganisms, cold-active enzymes, environmental applications

African Journal of Biotechnology, Vol 13(22) 2188-2197