ABSTRACT
Pectinases have attracted researchers from biotechnology for their usage as a catalyst in a variety of industrial applications. Pectinases’ breakdown pectin is present on the plant cell wall and for this reason, they are widely used in the clarification of wine and fruit juices. Of late, pectinases have been reported for their application in oil extraction, debasement in biofuel production, animal feed production, tea/coffee fermentation, and wastewater treatment, among others. Despite various industrial applications of pectinases, this chapter focuses on the role of pectinases in waste valorization. Like other enzymes, pectinases are also prone to yield constraints that have to be circumvented for cost-effective enzyme production. Microbial sources of pectinases have been explored and harnessed thoroughly in waste valorization due to their flexible physicochemical properties. Recently, the advent of recombinant DNA technology has provided an avenue for manipulating microbial pectinates to obtain the required enzyme activity and yield to scale up the production.
