Molecular Biology of Microbial Pectate Lyase: A Review

Pectate lyase represents an important member of pectinase group of enzymes responsible for the pathogenesis and softening of plant tissues. It also has role in fruit juice clarification and in retting of natural fibers. The biochemical characterization of pectate lyases from diverse microbial sources and plants along with an insight to the protein structure has been dealt earlier but there is a lack of exclusive review on the molecular biology of pectate lyases. This review tries to fill the gap by highlighting the various aspects of molecular biology of microbial pectate lyases especially the cloning and expression of pectate lyase genes from diverse sources attempted so far. The topics covered in this review are a brief description about enzymes associated with degradation of pectin, its classification, applications, updated information about the biochemical characterization of microbial pectate lyases and cloning and expression of microbial pectate lyase genes.