ABSTRACT
Due to high consumption of phosphorus in agriculture and animal feeding, the improvement of techniques to get phosphorus has taken priority. Moreover, grains are the most common components in animal feeding, where phosphorus is usually found as phytates that are unavailable nutrients for monogastric animals. Therefore, phytases research has increased in the latest years to find better production conditions that might affect the cost, reduce production steps or increase yields.
Phytases hydrolyze phytate and release the phosphorus allowing the use of this macronutrient. Thermostable phytases have been developed because of the need for stable enzymes in processes that involve high temperatures and different pH conditions similar to the gastric or intestinal conditions where it will be used. Nowadays, the optimization of phytases production is one of the main issues that are looked for through the improving of the culture, the bioreactor, microorganisms, etc. It will enhance the storage availability and will obtain better performance at high temperatures and different pH’s. A stable enzyme can be achieved 122using additives as maltose, glycerol, casein, polyethylene glycol, etc. In fact, to obtain these thermostable enzymes, genetics has an important role in using vectors to insert genes in microorganisms to get more resistant enzymes. The aim of this chapter is to review the recent researches, the technological advances and the improved processes in the actual production of phytases.
