L-asparaginase (EC 3.5.1.1) is an enzyme that catalysis mainly the asparagine hydrolysis in l-aspartic acid and ammonium. This enzyme is presented in different organisms, such as microorganisms, vegetal, and some animals, including certain rodent's serum, but not unveiled in humans. It can be used as important chemotherapeutic agent for the treatment of a variety of lymphoproliferative disorders and lymphomas (particularly acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) and Hodgkin's lymphoma), and has been a pivotal agent in chemotherapy protocols from around 30 years. Also, other important application is in food industry, by using the properties of this enzyme to reduce acrylamide levels in commercial fried foods, maintaining their characteristics (color, flavor, texture, security, etc.) Actually, l-asparaginase catalyzes the hydrolysis of l-asparagine, not allowing the reaction of reducing sugars with this aminoacid for the generation of acrylamide. Currently, production of l-asparaginase is mainly based in biotechnological production by using some bacteria. However, industrial production also needs research work aiming to obtain better production yields, as well as novel process by applying different microorganisms to increase the range of applications of the produced enzyme. Within this context, this mini-review presents l-asparaginase applications, production by different microorganisms and some limitations, current investigations, as well as some challenges to be achieved for profitable industrial production.

The integrated approach in biorefinery mainly involves the utilization of various agroindustrial byproducts such as raw materials for the production of several biobased products like biofuels, bioenergy, and other high-value chemicals. Biofuels are the backbone of biorefineries, however, production of value-added biomolecules such as biopigments, biopolymers, biosurfactants, and nutritional yeast has been attracting great attention. The production of these biomolecules using traditional approaches has been extensively studied in the last few years owing to their promising application in different industries such as chemical, food/feed, and pharmaceuticals for the development of novel products for mankind. Moreover, the production of such biomolecules using lignocellulosic, starchy, and some other agroindustrial byproducts is still not fully explored. Hence, there is a huge scope in the development of sustainable biorefining approaches to make the technology cost-effective. The lignocellulosic biomasses usually used in biorefineries are mainly composed of cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin, whereas starchy materials, besides starch, usually contain, protein, lipids, and some micronutrients. The processing of these biomasses through successive steps like pretreatments, enzymatic hydrolysis, and fermentation is essentially required to obtained final biobased products. Considering certain bottlenecks of above-mentioned conventional biorefineries approaches, new technologies have been proposed for the improved pretreatment of biomass and efficient enzymatic hydrolysis in order to minimize the concentration of toxic inhibitors in resulting hydrolysate. In this review, we highlighted the different agroindustrial byproducts and their applications for the production of valuable biorefinery products.

In spite of the limited sources of fossil fuels, energy demand has been considerably increased since the last century. The problems associated with global warming due to rising atmospheric greenhouse gas levels and scarcity of fossil fuels make it imperative to reduce our heavy dependency on fossil fuels. These reasons forced countries throughout the world to search for new fuel alternatives. Biofuel have gathered considerable attention due to their inherent benefits, like lower greenhouse gas emission, renewability, and sustainability. Commercially, biofuels are produced from vegetable oils, animal fats, and carbohydrates by using transesterification and fermentation. However, biofuel production suffers from high production costs and other technical barriers. Considering the environmental and economic issues, use of nanotechnology seems to be a viable solution. Nanoparticles have a number of interesting properties for the production of second-generation ethanol or transesterification of oils and fats to yield biodiesel. It is advantageous for recovery and reuse of catalysts. The present review discusses the role of nanotechnology in the production of bioethanol and biodiesel. Moreover, applications of nanoparticles for the production of biodiesel and second-generation ethanol with special reference to enzyme immobilization and chemical nano-catalysis have been described.

The oleochemical industry has a permanent interested in controlling the physical, functional and organoleptical properties of their products and in producing useful derivatives from their raw materials. The potential of biotechnology for developing novel or well-known products at more competitive costs meets the need of this industrial segment in expanding their goals. In this work some technical aspects, problems and perspectives related to the production of oil and fat derivatives using biotransformation techniques are discussed. Particular emphasis is given to the description of biotransformation processes using lipase as catalyst, in view of the great versatility of this enzyme class to mediate typical reactions in this technological sector