Abstract
A very large amount of enzymes is used in the detergent industry, as well as in the starch, food and fabric industries. Today's world use of detergent enzymes has reached over 500 billion dollars, and has a growth of 10-15% per year. This high growth is mainly due to the new functionalities provided by cellulase and lipase, to the development of compact-type heavy-duty detergent, and the addition of the automatic dishwasher market. We have isolated many alkaliphilic Bacillus strains that produce alkaline cellulases, alkaline proteases, and amylolytic enzymes to incorporate them into compact-type heavy-duty detergents and automatic dishwasher detergents. We have succeeded in large-scale industrial production of some of these enzymes by hyperproducing mutants or by recombinant Bacillus subtilis cells. In this report, we describe the alkaline enzymes for use in detergents, with emphasis on their catalytic properties, genetics and improvements by protein engineering.
