Chitinase is an extracellular complex of enzymes that degrade chitin. Chitin is a cell wall component of Fungi and exoskeletal essentials of different organisms which reshape their own chitin or digest/dissolve the chitin of other organisms (insects, fungi, yeast, and algae, and in the internal structures of other vertebrates). Chitinases have been detected in many microorganisms and in plants. In fungi, chitinases assist in morphogenesis, to break down the inherent chitin content of fungal cell walls. Plant chitinases help in resistance to fungal attack and counteracting fungal growth, by targeting those same fungal cell walls. In bacteria, bacterial chitinases assist in utilizing chitin as a carbon source and as an energy source. Streptomyces griseus produces multiple chitinases of different molecular masses after growth induction with chitin as the carbon source.

The enzymatic hydrolysis of chitin to N-acetyl-D-glucosamine involves two consecutive enzyme reactions:

• The first reaction, chitodextrinase-chitinase, is a poly(β-(1→4)-[2-acetamido-2-deoxy-D-glucoside])- glycanohydrolase, which removes chitobiose units from chitin.
• The second activity is N-acetyl-glucosaminidasechitobiase, which cleaves the disaccharide to its monomer subunits, N-acetyl-D-glucosamine.

• Agriculture fields: control pathogens.
• Human health care: Asthma.
• Pharma: preparation of chitooligosaccharides and N-acetyl D glucosamine,
• Preparation of single-cell protein
• Isolation of protoplasts from fungi and yeast
• Control of pathogenic fungi
• Treatment of chitinous waste, mosquito control and morphogenesis

The study of microbial communities has recently been revolutionized by the widespread adoption of culture- independent analytical techniques such as 16S rRNA gene sequencing and metagenomics. Since DNA contamination during sample preparation is a major problem of these sequence-based approaches, DNA extraction reagents free of DNA contaminants are essential. Purified Chitinase SAE0158 undergoes strict quality control testing to ensure the absence of detectable levels of contaminating DNA, using 35 cycles of PCR amplification of 16S and 18S rDNA, using universal primer sets.

This Chitinase is free of DNA contaminates, suitable for microbiome research. Cell walls digestion is performed safely by chitin degradation in fungi and other organisms.

One unit will liberate 1.0 mg of N-acetyl-D-glucosamine from chitin per hour at pH 6.0 at 25 °C in a 2-hour assay.