Pectinases are the growing enzymes of biotechnological sector, showing gradual increase in their market. They hold a leading position among the commercially produced industrial enzymes. These enzymes are ecofriendly tool of nature that are being used extensively in various industries like wine industry; food industry; paper industry for bleaching of pulp and waste paper recycling; in the processing of fruit–vegetables, tea–coffee, animal feed; extraction of vegetable oil and scouring of plant fibres. Moreover, enzymatic catalysis is preferred over other chemical methods, since it is more specific, less aggressive and saves energy. This is the review which covers the information available on the applicability potential of this group of enzymes in various sectors.

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Persisters are phenotypic variants of normal susceptible bacterial populations that survive prolonged exposure to high doses of antibiotics and are responsible for pertinacious infections and post-treatment relapses. Out of the three antibiotics, Acinetobacter baumannii formed the highest percentage of persister cells against rifampicin followed by amikacin and the least against colistin. Colistin-treated cells formed the high levels of reactive oxygen species (ROS) whose quenching with bipyridyl and thiourea led to an increased persister population. Curcumin, a polyphenolic pro-oxidant, significantly decreased persistence against colistin. The quenching of ROS generated by curcumin-colistin combination and the use of resveratrol, an anti-oxidant, with colistin increased the persister population, supporting the significance of ROS in decreased persistence against this combination. The down-regulation of repair genes by this combination in comparison to colistin alone supported the modulation of gene expression in response to ROS and their importance in decreased persistence. Increased membrane permeability by colistin, facilitating the penetration of curcumin into cells and resulting in increased ROS and compromised repair compounded by the decreased efflux of colistin by the inhibition of efflux pumps, may be responsible for enhanced lethality and low persistence. Hence, the curcumin-colistin combination can be another option with anti-persister potential for the control of chronic A. baumannii infections.

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Qualitative screening of alkalo-thermophilic cellulase free xylano-pectinolytic microorganisms was done on agricultural residues. Since xylan is an expensive substrate for the isolation of xylanase producing microorganisms, the possibility of using wheat bran for screening of these microorganisms was investigated. Screening was carried out on wheat bran for the selection of xylanolytic microorganisms, on waste paper for the evaluation of cellulase free xylanolytic microorganisms, and on citrus peel for screening of pectinolytic microorganisms. Qualitative analysis of xylanase, pectinase and cellulase activities depicted that the zones obtained on nutrient agar medium containing agricultural residues were apparent and comparable with the zones obtained on nutrient agar medium containing commercial substrates. A strategy of using cost effective wheat-bran, wastepaper and citrus-peel for the isolation of cellulase free xylano-pectinolytic microorganisms is a novel and promising method and will ultimately bring down the cost of screening of these enzyme producing microorganisms.

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Simultaneous production of xylanase and pectinase by Bacillus pumilus AJK under submerged fermentation was investigated in this study. Under optimized conditions, it produced 315 ± 16 IU/mL acidic xylanase, 290 ± 20 IU/mL alkaline xylanase, and 88 ± 9 IU/mL pectinase. The production of xylano-pectinolytic enzymes was the highest after inoculating media (containing 2% each of wheat bran and Citrus limetta peel, 0.5% peptone, 10 mM MgSO, pH 7.0) with 2% of 21-hr-old culture and incubated at 37°C for 60 hr at 200 rpm. Xylanase retained 100% activity from pH 6.0 to10.0 after 3 hr of incubation, while pectinase showed 100% stability from pH 6.0 to 9.0 even after 6 hr of incubation. Cost-effective and concurrent production of xylanase and pectinase by a bacterial isolate in the same production media suggests its potential for various biotechnological applications. This is the first report of simultaneous production of industrially important extracellular xylano-pectinolytic enzymes by B. pumilus.

Xylano-pectino-cellulolytic enzymes are valuable enzymes of the industrial sector. In our earlier study, we have reported a novel and cost effective methodology for the qualitative screening of cellulase-free xylano-pectinolytic microorganisms by replacing the commercial, highly expensive substrates with agricultural residues, but the microorganisms with xylanolytic, pectinolytic, cellulolytic, xylano-pectinolytic, xylano-cellulolytic, pectino-cellulolytic, and xylano-pectino-cellulolytic potential were obtained. The probability of getting the desired combination was low, so efforts were made to further improve this cost effective methodology for obtaining the high yield of the microbes capable of producing desired combination of enzymes. By inclusion of multiple enrichment steps in sequence, using only practically low cost substrates and without any nutrient media till primary screening stage, this improved novel protocol for screening gave only the desired microorganisms with xylano-pectino-cellulolytic activity. Using this rapid, efficient, cost effective, and improved methodology, microbes with required combination of enzymes can be obtained and the probability of getting the desired microorganisms is cent percent. This is the first report presenting the methodology for the isolation of xylano-pectino-cellulolytic positive microorganisms at low cost and consuming less time.