Production and industrial applications of laccase enzyme

Laccase is an enzyme that has potential ability of oxidation. It belongs to those enzymes, which have innate properties of reactive radical production, and its utilization in many fields has been ignored because of its unavailability in the commercial field. There are diverse sources of laccase producing organisms like bacteria, fungi and plants. Textile, pulp and paper industries discharge a huge quantity of waste in the environment, and the disposal of this waste is a big problem. To solve this problem, work has done to discover such an enzyme, which can detoxify these wastes and is not harmful to the environment. Laccases use oxygen and produce water as by product. They can degrade a range of compounds including phenolic and non-phenolic compounds. They also have ability to detoxify a range of environmental pollutants. Their property to act on a range of substrates and also to detoxify a range of pollutants have made them to be usable for several purposes in many industries including paper, pulp, textile and petrochemical industries.