Marine Fish Digestive Proteases?relevance to Food Industry and the South-West Atlantic Region?a Review

The biological diversity of marine species provides a wide array of enzymes with unique properties. For this reason, there is great potential for the recovery and use of digestive proteases from fish provessing wastes. Fish digestive proteolytic enzymes most commonly studied include pepsin, trypsin, chymotrypsin, gastricsin and elastase. Enzymes from cold adapted ectothermic organisms have application in the food industry because their temperature and other characteristics differ from homologous proteases from warm-blooded animals. The South-West Atlantic ocean is an enormous reservoir of different fish species. The digestive proteases from these organisms can be isolated as a by-product and used for processing aids in the food industry.