Background:
Alpha-amylases are enzymes capable of degrading polysaccharides, such as starch and glycogen.
Found in various organisms, such as fungi and bacteria, these enzymes have great biotechnological potential due to their
insertion in several industrial sectors raging from food to biofuels.
Objective:
The aim of this study was to analyze patents deposited in intellectual property databases on alpha-amylases in
the fields of food, beverages, detergents, animal feeds, biofuels, pharmaceuticals and textiles, with the search period being
the 5 years.
Method:
This study targeted the use of alpha-amylases in various industrial sectors, so searches were carried out on the
intellectual property database Espacenet website (European Patent Office - EPO) which contains more than 90 million
patents deposited in its database.
Results:
During the search for patents filed in the last 5 years, 186 were found related to the use of alpha-amylases. These
were disturbed as follows: 84 (biofuel), 41 (drinks), 16 (pharmaceuticals), 15 (detergents), 11 (food), 10 (animal feed), 9
(textiles). From the total number of patents found, we selected 6 from each area, except pharmaceutical products, to
discuss and provide information on the application of this enzyme.
Conclusion:
This study demonstrated that the sectors of beverages and animal feed have preferences for thermostable
alpha-amylases while sectors such as food, biofuels and textiles only regarded the importance of enzymatic efficiency.
The detergent sector presented the greatest use of alpha-amylases which had distinct biochemical characteristics as solvent
resistance and thermostability. The pharmaceutical sector was the one that presented less patents related to the application
of alpha amylases. In addition, this work showed that China is the country with the highest patent registration for the use
of alpha-amylases in the analyzed period.
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