Bacterial chitinase: nature and perspectives for sustainable bioproduction

Concurrent advances in a number of fields have fostered the development of bioprocesses for biochemical production. Ideally, future bioprocesses will meet the demands of commercial chemical markets in an economical fashion while being sustainable through the use of renewable starting materials. A number of different renewable and abundant biopolymers (e.g., cellulose, hemicelluloses, lignin, and chitin) are potential starting material for sustainable bioprocesses, but a broad challenge remains on how to efficiently depolymerize these biopolymers to generate monomeric sugars that can be metabolized by industrial microorganisms or other useful building block chemicals. Indeed, a variety of specialty chemicals may be able to be generated from these various monomers. This review focuses on the biopolymer chitin and discusses research and knowledge relevant to chitin degradation and potential chemical products that can be made from chitin degradation products.