Leila Karami

Lipases are acknowledged as relevant biocatalysts for numerous important applications in food, detergents and pharmaceutical processing, ester and peptide synthesis, transesterifications, biosurfactant production, and in the resolution of racemic mixtures to produce optically active compounds. Lipases are produced by organisms of microbial, plant, and animal origin. Microbial lipases have attracted far more interest from researchers and industries than lipases from other sources, due both to their speci fic features and ease of production on large scale. Notwithstanding current achievements, there is still a quest for lipases with improved/novel catalytic features and improved stability, namely in harsh environments. Marine organisms can be an adequate source for such lipases as marine enzymes have proved useful for both process improvement and for the development of new manufacturing procedures/new products. The production of lipases is infl uenced by the composition of the culture medium, e.g. carbon and nitrogen sources, as well as by physical chemical parameters such as tem-perature and pH. In this review relevant, types of lipases from marine organisms are identi fied, their role is described and the novel features of these enzymes are discussed