Many microorganisms produce potent biocatalysts as enzymes that vary in microbial sources, chemical properties, and mechanisms. Usually, microbial enzymes catalyze the reactions of hydrolysis, oxidation, or reduction. Microbial enzymes have different active site motifs targeting diversified substrates. They may catalyze the reaction by entirely different mechanisms even if they belong to the same class—microbial enzymes are mainly produced by submerged fermentation and solid-state fermentation. The enormous diversity of microbial enzymes makes them an exciting group of products for application in many areas, such as agricultural, chemical industry, food processing industry, textile industry, pharmaceuticals, wood processing industry, analytical applications, cosmetics, and environmental pollution control (such as bioremediation and biodegradation). In this chapter, classification and microbial resources, microbial production, and industrial applications of a group of industrially used microbial enzymes, such as carbohydrases, proteases, and lipases, are described.
