Proteases of Wood Rot Fungi with Emphasis on the GenusPleurotus

Abstract

Proteases are present in all living organisms and they play an important role in physiological conditions. Cell growth and death, blood clotting, and immune defense are all examples of the importance of proteases in maintaining homeostasis. There is growing interest in proteases due to their use for industrial purposes. The search for proteases with specific characteristics is designed to reduce production costs and to find suitable properties for certain industrial sectors, as well as good producing organisms. Ninety percent of commercialized proteases are obtained from microbial sources and proteases from macromycetes have recently gained prominence in the search for new enzymes with specific characteristics. The production of proteases from saprophytic basidiomycetes has led to the identification of various classes of proteases. The genus Pleurotus has been extensively studied because of its ligninolytic enzymes. The characteristics of this genus are easy cultivation techniques, high yield, low nutrient requirements, and excellent adaptation. There are few studies in the literature about proteases of Pleurotus spp. This review gathers together information about proteases, especially those derived from basidiomycetes, and aims at stimulating further research about fungal proteases because of their physiological importance and their application in various industries such as biotechnology and medicine.

Biotechnological, nutritional and therapeutic uses of Pleurotus spp. (Oyster mushroom) related with its chemical composition: A review on the past decade findings

“…Cultivations that are performed in the vegetative phase are much more interesting and functional for research considering that they can be kept in the laboratory, performed on a small and medium scale, and important parameters such as temperature, humidity, pH and aeration can be easily controlled (Inácio et al, 2015a). Thus, submerged cultivation is a promising and still under-explored alternative for the extraction of bioactive molecules in short time, which also allows the mycelia storage for a long period without genetic alterations, beneficiating the conservation of biodiversity (Zilly et al, 2011).…”

“…Extensive research on cultivation techniques (Gregori, Svagelj & Pohleven, 2007;Carvalho, Sales-Campos & Andrade, 2010), chemical composition and nutritional profile (Reis et al, 2012;Atri et al, 2013;Maftoun et al, 2015) has been done in the last ten years, along with a comprehensive account of the biotechnological capabilities of the genus Pleurotus including enzyme production (Inácio et al, 2015a;Knop, Yarden & Hadar, 2015) (Figure 2). More recently, the scientific reports referring to Pleurotus species have also focused on novel approaches for taxonomic issues (Menolli Jr., Breternitz & Capelari, 2014;Maftoun et al 2015), isolation and characterization of new functional compounds, besides the in depth-study of their medicinal properties (Khan & Tania, 2012;Patel, Narain & Singh, 2012;Yahaya, Rahman & Abdulhah, 2014).…”

Hydrolytic degree and antioxidant activity of purified casein characterised by different haplotypes (αs1‐, β‐ and k‐casein) after enzymatic hydrolysis with pepsin and enzymatic extract from Pleurotus eryngii

“…It is known that pepsin has broad specificity with a preference for peptides containing linkages with hydrophobic amino acids and preferentially cleaves C‐terminal to Phe and Leu. Whereas, Pleurotus eryngii possesses a pool of acid and basic proteases (Inácio et al , ) belonging to the families of aspartyl (Wang & Ng, ), serine (Cha et al , ) and metalloproteases (Shen et al , ), characterised by different active sites that hydrolyse the protein in several sites simultaneously, thus leading with a consequent increase in DH value. As shown in Table , DH values were significantly influenced by the CN haplotype ( P < 0.001), in agreement with Petrat‐Melin et al () who reported that the haplotype influences positively or negatively the presence of zones resistant to enzymatic hydrolysis.…”

“…In the last few years, several commercial protease preparations, namely Alcalase ® , Neutrase ® and Flavourzyme ® based on bacterial and fungal peptidases are widely used for the synthesis of bioactive peptides (De Castro & Sato, ; Bhat et al , ; Silva, ). Among the mushrooms, those of the Pleurotus genus produce different types of proteases; in particular, Pleurotus eryngii , one of the most popular edible mushrooms worldwide, is an excellent producer of aspartic and serine proteases (Inácio et al , ). Moreover, Pleurotus eryngii contains various beneficial bioactive compounds such as polyphenols, polysaccharides, peptides and dietary fibres (Ferreira et al , ); thus, it is widely utilised in the food industry for developing dairy functional foods (Miao et al , ).…”

Nutritional composition of bioproducts generated from semi-solid fermentation of pineapple peel by edible mushrooms

“…In particular, proteases play an essential role in the food industry, acting as agents for modifying the functional properties of proteins, in the processing of cheese, in obtaining protein hydrolyzates, improving the flavor of some foods and also in baking (Inacio et al, 2015). These enzymes participate in some physiological processes such as sporulation, conidial discharge, germination, regulation of gene expression and protein turnover (Khaund and Joshi, 2014).…”