Cholesterol Oxidase and Its Applications

Cholesterol oxidase (COX), a bi-functional FAD-containing microbial enzyme belongs to the family oxidoreductases. COX catalyses the oxidation of cholesterol into 4-cholesten-3-one. In recent time, cholesterol oxidase has received great attention due to its wider use in clinical (determination of serum cholesterol) laboratories practice and in the biocatalysis for the production of a number of steroids. COX has been shown to possess potent insecticidal activity, besides its use to track cell cholesterol. Moreover, COX is also implicated in the manifestation of some of the diseases of bacterial (tuberculosis), viral (HIV) and non-viral prion origin (Alzheimer’s). These applications and disease mechanisms have promoted the need of screening, isolation and characterization of newer microbes from diverse habitats as a source of COX to learn more about its structural and functional aspects. In this review, we discuss microbial sources of COX, its structure and important biochemical properties besides its broad range of biological functions and applications.