ABSTRACT
Research related to chitosan is primarily focused as a bioactive compound. However, its high molecular weight and viscosity reduce its solubility in water, which makes it usefulness in food and difficult in biomedical applications. Therefore, research has focused on the generation of hydrolyzed products, such as the chito-oligosaccharides (COS) and D-glucosamine. The enzymatic method is of great importance since the percentage of contaminant residues in the products generated is minimal or null, making the use of chitosanase very attractive. Fungi as an enzymatic source are a great alternative, among them one of the most used genus is Aspergillus. Interestingly, the fungal chitosan has demonstrated its great potential for application in industry and diagnosis in medicine. The enzyme showed a great ability to 266hydrolyze chitosan to obtain the DP 2-7 COS. A recent report has shown that Aspergillus chitosanase was successfully applied to a pilot study of chitosan hydrolysis at the 200 kg scale.
