Marine glycosyl hydrolases in the hydrolysis and synthesis of oligosaccharides

The marine ecosystem can be considered a rather unexplored source of biological material (e.g. natural substances with therapeutic activity) and can be also a surprising source of enzymes carrying new and interesting catalytic activities to be applied in biocatalysis. The use of glycosyl hydrolases from marine environments dates back to the end of 1960s and was mainly focused on the development of sensitive and reliable hydrolytic methods for the analysis of sugar chains. As a result not all the benefits of a particular enzymatic activity have been investigated specially regarding the transglycosylation potential of these enzymes for the synthesis of glycosidic bonds. In this review the potential of the marine source will be demonstrated reporting on the few examples found in literature for the synthesis and hydrolysis of biologically relevant oligosaccharides catalysed by glycosyl hydrolases of marine origin. Particular emphasis is given to the synthesis of glycosidic bonds which is easy by the use of glycosyl hydrolases. Further aspects considered in this review are applications of these biocatalysts for vegetal waste treatment in recovering useful materials, for structural identification and for preparation of target materials from new purified polysaccharides, for the synthesis or modification of food-related compounds and for glycobiology related studies.