Microbial L-asparaginase: Present and Future Prospective

L-Asparaginase is a well known enzyme for its chemotherapeutic properties since it catalyzes hydrolysis of the amino acid asparagine into aspartate and ammonia which is essential for tumour cells. It has been effectively used in the treatment of acute lymphoblastic leukemia and lymphosarcoma from decades. This article comprises a brief introduction about the enzyme, its sources, mechanism of action as well as a detailed information about its production and purification.This article also provide some recent updated information about its structure, physiochemical and kinetic properties of the enzyme as well as about modifications such as cloning to get the enzyme in recombinant form, formulation and immobilization of the enzyme.