The industrial logic behind thermostable amylases is deceptively simple but technically demanding. Native starch granules require sustained thermal input at 95 to 105 degrees Celsius to overcome their crystalline hydrogen-bonding networks during gelatinization—the first step in converting starch into glucose syrups, ethanol, and countless other products. Conventional mesophilic enzymes, such as the alpha-amylase from Aspergillus oryzae, denature rapidly above 50 to 55 degrees Celsius, forcing manufacturers to cool their hot starch slurries before enzymatic treatment and then reheat them afterward. Thermostable microbial amylases, predominantly isolated from thermophilic bacteria such as Bacillus licheniformis and Geobacillus stearothermophilus, sustain catalytic activity at 70 to 100 degrees Celsius, eliminating the need for cooling, accelerating mass transfer, decreasing slurry viscosity, and providing intrinsic protection against microbial contamination without chemical biocides. The energy savings alone transform process economics.

But what does it actually mean for an enzyme to be thermostable? The review establishes a rigorous operational distinction that has been frequently conflated in the scientific literature. Thermoactivity refers to the instantaneous catalytic reaction rate measured across an ascending temperature gradient, culminating in an apparent temperature optimum during short assay intervals of typically 10 to 15 minutes. Because higher temperatures exponentially accelerate catalytic turnover according to the Arrhenius relationship—with activation energies of roughly 30 to 50 kilojoules per mole—an enzyme may display an apparent temperature optimum of 60 to 70 degrees Celsius purely as a transient kinetic phenomenon immediately preceding acute thermal denaturation. True thermostability, by contrast, represents the thermodynamic and kinetic resistance of the folded native tertiary structure against irreversible thermal denaturation over prolonged operational intervals. Padia and Tipre propose a dual criterion: an alpha-amylase should only be classified as thermostable if it achieves optimal catalytic activity at 60 degrees Celsius or above and maintains an operational thermal half-life of at least 30 minutes at or above 60 degrees Celsius, retaining at least 50 percent residual catalytic activity without substrate stabilization or protective additives.

Applying this framework, the authors categorize amylases along an operational thermal continuum spanning psychrotolerant variants with optima at 10 to 30 degrees Celsius and rapid inactivation above 40 degrees Celsius, through mesophilic enzymes stable at 30 to 45 degrees Celsius, moderately thermophilic variants with half-lives exceeding 30 minutes at 60 degrees Celsius, thermostable enzymes with optima at 65 to 85 degrees Celsius and half-lives exceeding 60 minutes at 70 to 80 degrees Celsius, and finally hyperthermostable enzymes with optima at or above 90 degrees Celsius. The hyperthermostable category is exemplified by Pyrococcus furiosus, an archaeon isolated from deep-sea hydrothermal vents whose alpha-amylase maintains more than 12 hours of activity at 90 degrees Celsius and 3.5 hours at 100 degrees Celsius while remaining fully calcium-independent. At the other end of the spectrum, Bacillus licheniformis RA31, isolated from a Rampur geothermal spring, achieves a half-life of 4.5 hours at 80 degrees Celsius with a calcium-dependent architecture requiring just 0.5 millimolar calcium ions.

One of the most intriguing molecular controversies the review addresses concerns calcium dependence. Many classical GH13 alpha-amylases contain a structural calcium-binding site, often near the interface of Domains A and B, which enhances conformational stability and thermal resistance by raising the energy barrier to protein unfolding. Yet several thermostable and industrially important amylases have been shown to be fully calcium-independent despite possessing the conserved calcium-binding architecture. Bacillus licheniformis UDS-5, isolated from the Unai hot spring, retains 100 percent activity in EDTA—a chelating agent that strips calcium from proteins—while Anoxybacillus beppuensis TSSC-1 maintains stability in 20 millimolar EDTA with a free energy of activation for thermal deactivation of 104 kilojoules per mole. This apparent contradiction indicates that thermostability in this enzyme family is not governed by a single universal mechanism but instead arises from a combination of factors—ionic and hydrophobic interactions, disulphide bridges, compact hydrophobic cores, and reduced surface loop flexibility—whose relative contribution varies across taxa and even across strains within the same species.

Structurally, alpha-amylases are organized into three distinct domains: Domain A, the catalytic core characterized by an N-terminal (beta/alpha)8 TIM barrel consisting of eight beta-strands surrounded by eight alpha-helices; Domain B, a beta-rich region forming part of the substrate-binding cleft; and Domain C, the C-terminal domain primarily involved in structural stability. The catalytic triad—consisting of an aspartic acid nucleophile, a glutamic acid proton donor, and another aspartic acid transition-state stabilizer—is specifically located on strands beta4, beta5, and beta7 of the barrel. These residues are highly conserved and essential for catalytic activity. Alpha-amylase activity is primarily associated with glycoside hydrolase family GH13, the largest and most abundant amylase family, though activity is also reported in GH57, which contains a modified (beta/alpha)7 barrel, and in GH119 and GH126. The GH13 family possesses 4 to 7 conserved sequence regions, mostly located on the beta-strands of the barrel catalytic domain.

The review also critically evaluates how these enzymes are produced at scale. Submerged fermentation, in which microorganisms are cultivated in liquid nutrient medium, generally allows better monitoring and control of parameters such as pH, temperature, aeration, agitation, and oxygen transfer, though it requires larger process volumes, higher water consumption, and increased energy input. Solid-state fermentation, by contrast, uses moist solid substrates with limited free water—including agricultural residues such as wheat bran and cassava bagasse—and can be particularly suitable for filamentous fungi while generating less wastewater. However, solid-state systems present important limitations, including difficulties in controlling moisture, temperature, pH, aeration, and substrate homogeneity, alongside heat and mass transfer constraints and localized overheating. The authors emphasize that comparative performance depends on the microorganism, substrate composition, moisture content, fermentation conditions, enzyme extraction efficiency, and the basis used to calculate production volume, cautioning that higher volumetric productivity should not be considered a universal advantage of either paradigm.

Optimization strategies have undergone a statistical revolution. Traditional one-factor-at-a-time approaches, which examine individual variables while keeping others constant, cannot evaluate interactions among variables and may therefore overlook factors whose effects depend on the levels of other process variables. The field has consequently transitioned toward interaction-aware response surface designs, including Plackett-Burman screening followed by Central Composite Design or Box-Behnken optimization, which develop second-order polynomial models describing linear, quadratic, and interaction effects on enzyme production. The review similarly evaluates analytical limitations of standard activity assays—the dinitrosalicylic acid method, Nelson-Somogyi quantification, iodine dextrinizing measurements, and synthetic chromophore approaches—emphasizing that no single assay provides a complete measure of alpha-amylase performance and that kinetic parameters are preferably estimated by fitting experimental data directly to the non-linear Michaelis-Menten equation rather than through distortive linear transformations such as Lineweaver-Burk plots, which disproportionately weight measurements at low substrate concentrations and amplify experimental errors.

Downstream processing remains the most expensive stage of enzyme manufacture. Purification strategies exploit differences in protein solubility, molecular size, charge, and hydrophobicity, typically beginning with ammonium sulphate precipitation followed by dialysis and chromatographic refinement. The comparative data reveal striking variability: Bacillus licheniformis TKU004 achieves a purification fold of 344.05 but a recovery yield of only 16.73 percent, while Bacillus siamensis JJC33M attains a modest 1.34-fold purification with 31 percent recovery through single-step fractionation. Higher purification does not necessarily indicate a more efficient downstream process—each additional step may increase specific activity but can also result in enzyme losses, longer processing time, and increased operational costs. The authors argue that purification strategies should be evaluated comparatively using purification fold, recovery yield, specific activity, enzyme stability, processing cost, scalability, and application-specific purity requirements rather than purification fold alone.

Looking forward, the review identifies three trajectories poised to define the next generation of industrial biocatalysis. First, bioprospecting in underexplored extreme environments—geothermal springs, deep-sea vents, saline lakes, and cold deserts—combined with culture-independent metagenomic approaches, is expected to expand the catalog of naturally thermostable and multi-stress-tolerant amylases beyond the well-studied Bacillus and Geobacillus groups, addressing the narrow taxonomic base that currently constrains industrial exploitation. Second, structure-guided and computational protein engineering, including rational mutagenesis, directed evolution, and increasingly machine-learning-assisted structure prediction, is likely to accelerate the design of amylases with tailored thermostability, pH optima, and product specificity. Third, integration of amylase production into circular-economy and biorefinery frameworks—using agro-industrial residues as fermentation feedstocks and coupling enzyme production with downstream valorization streams—is expected to improve economic viability for large-scale sustainable industrial use. As the global industrial enzyme market expands from USD 6.4 billion in 2022 toward a projected USD 10.2 billion by 2030, with carbohydrases constituting roughly 45 percent of total market revenue, these heat-proof molecular machines will remain at the forefront of the biotechnological transformation of starch processing worldwide.

Subject of Research: Thermostable microbial alpha-amylases review reveals molecular basis, production strategies, and industrial applications

Article Title: Thermostable microbial α-amylases: production, characterization, molecular basis, and industrial applications — a review

Article References: Padia, H., & Tipre, D. R. (2026). Thermostable microbial α-amylases: production, characterization, molecular basis, and industrial applications — a review. Frontiers in Industrial Microbiology, 4, Article 1946517. https://doi.org/10.3389/finmi.2026.1946517

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.3389/finmi.2026.1946517

Keywords: Thermostable, microbial, amylases, production, characterization, molecular, basis, industrial, applications, review, scientific research

The historical trajectory is remarkable. In 1974, women accounted for 11 of the 87 doctorates recorded in Portugal, roughly 12.6 percent, and represented approximately 18 percent of all doctorates awarded during the 1970s. Women were therefore already present, although under-represented, among doctorate holders before the transition to democracy. What changed after 1974 was a marked increase of women in doctoral research, driven by state investment in education, European integration, and laws promoting gender equity. The Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, established in 1997, has played a key role by funding fellowships and grants that gave women independent research paths. By the early 2000s, women accounted for around half of all PhDs awarded in Portugal, and today they lead research groups all over the country, from the north to the Azores and Madeira islands.

Funding data reinforce this picture of strong participation. In FCT’s 2023 and 2021 IC&DT project competitions, women led the majority of nationally funded projects, at 58.1 percent and 55.2 percent of principal investigators respectively. In the 2023 PT2030 IC&DT call, whose results were published in 2025, women accounted for 54 percent of principal investigators among submitted applications and 58.1 percent among funded projects. This is consistent with She Figures 2024, which reports that women’s overall research-funding success rate in Portugal was 1.4 percentage points higher than men’s in 2022. Between 56 and 59 percent of FCT doctoral, postdoctoral, and research fellowships were awarded to women as of 2019. The bottleneck lies further along the pipeline: only 24 percent of Portuguese full professors are women, against 48 percent of assistant-level academic staff, and women hold just 20 percent of rectorships and university presidencies nationally.

To illustrate the depth of women-led science, the authors curated a set of studies from 2014 to 2026 where the first or last author is a woman, spanning four thematic areas. The first is the microbial ecology of traditional fermented foods. Portugal has a rich variety of PDO cheeses like Serra da Estrela, Azeitão, and Nisa, and dry-cured sausages like Paio do Alentejo and Salpicão, each with its own unique microbial community of lactic acid bacteria, coagulase negative staphylococci, yeasts, and moulds. At the Faculdade de Medicina Veterinária da Universidade de Lisboa, Teresa Semedo-Lemsaddek’s group has used conventional microbiology along with omics tools, including comparative genomics and metagenomics, to characterize enterococci and other lactic acid bacteria from Portuguese cheeses, fermented meats, and poultry production systems. Enterococcus species play a dual and often contradictory role: they contribute to cheese ripening, yet some strains carry virulence and antimicrobial resistance genes. The group characterized strains isolated from Azeitão and Nisa PDO cheeses, capturing this duality in detail, and has also examined bacterial persisters, dormant cells capable of surviving exposure to antimicrobials and sanitizers, an emerging concern for food safety.

At the Universidade Católica Portuguesa in Porto, Paula Teixeira, Full Professor in Food Microbiology and leader of the CBQF Food and Nutrition group, has built a long-running food microbiology program focused on pathogens. Her research covers the ecology, stress resistance, pathogenesis, and control of Listeria monocytogenes in food production environments, including the characterization of a cheese-related listeriosis outbreak in Portugal. The group has also studied probiotic lactobacilli from traditional Portuguese fermented foods. In the Azores, Célia Silva’s team at the Universidade dos Açores has investigated exopolysaccharide-producing lactic acid bacteria strains from local cheeses as functional starters to improve texture and water retention in low-fat cheeses, while reviewing the broader biotechnological potential and food safety relevance of these microorganisms.

The second thematic area is starter culture development and fermentation technology. At the Universidade de Évora, Marta Laranjo’s research showed that autochthonous starter cultures, strains isolated from the local meat matrix, work better than commercial ones, preserving the authentic sensory profile while improving microbiological safety. For meat sausages like Paio do Alentejo and Salpicão, the team optimized inoculation protocols that reduce biogenic amine accumulation and help beneficial microbes outcompete unwanted ones, work performed in close collaboration with Maria João Fraqueza at FMV-ULisboa, whose expertise in meat science underpinned the definition of starter culture protocols. A recent European network project has focused on mapping fermented foods across Europe and the associated fermentation technologies, as well as the health benefits these foods provide. Work on Madeira Island includes the characterization of indigenous non-Saccharomyces yeast fermentation and its impact on the chemical and phenolic composition of Madeira wine.

The third area is biofilm biology and pathogen persistence in food environments. Biofilms are one of the biggest problems in food safety because pathogens embedded in them resist sanitation and antimicrobials and can contaminate food. At the Instituto Nacional de Investigação Agrária e Veterinária, in collaboration with LEPABE at the Universidade do Porto and CEB at the Universidade do Minho, Carina Almeida built a research program at the intersection of food safety, biofilm microbiology, and molecular diagnostics, using peptide nucleic acid fluorescence in situ hybridization and related nucleic acid mimic technologies to rapidly detect foodborne pathogens in biofilm environments. At LEPABE, Luciana Gomes has worked on engineered surfaces that prevent microbial adhesion, with recent work showing that biomimetic surfaces can significantly reduce Escherichia coli attachment and retention on food contact materials. Research at CBQF on Listeria monocytogenes has documented links between antimicrobial resistance patterns and stress tolerance in strains from food processing environments, directly supporting risk assessment.

The fourth area is antimicrobial resistance surveillance under a One Health framework. The World Health Organization considers antimicrobial resistance one of the biggest threats to global public health, and the food chain is a major reservoir and transmission route for resistant bacteria and their resistance genes. At the Universidade de Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro, Maria José Saavedra, founder and scientific coordinator of the Antimicrobials, Biocides & Biofilms Laboratory, has built an internationally recognized program studying resistance mechanisms, with particular emphasis on beta-lactam resistance and carbapenemase production, horizontal gene transfer, biofilm-associated resistance, and the molecular epidemiology of multidrug-resistant bacteria across human, veterinary, food, and environmental compartments. Datasets cover Aeromonas species, Enterobacteriaceae, Campylobacter, Enterococcus, Staphylococcus, and carbapenemase-producing Klebsiella pneumoniae from Portuguese hospitals, where genome-wide longitudinal analyses traced the predominance of KPC-2 and OXA-48 lineages in northern Portugal. A decade-long study on Campylobacter in humans and animals showed a persistent and growing prevalence of fluoroquinolone resistance, and the group has extended surveillance to rivers, freshwater mussels, and marine gastropods as reservoirs and bioindicators of resistant bacteria.

One striking methodological feature of this women-led research is how well classical microbiology is combined with advanced molecular and omics tools. Culture-based methods remain important for isolating strains and assessing safety, but they are now backed by whole genome sequencing, metagenomics, resistome profiling, and comparative genomics. Sequencing whole genomes of food isolates lets researchers identify species, count resistance and virulence genes, find mobile genetic elements, and see how strains relate to clinical and environmental ones, information directly useful for regulators and industry. Portuguese women-led groups at FMV-ULisboa, CBQF-UCP, UTAD, and INIAV were among the early adopters of whole genome sequencing in Portugal. Portugal also holds the second-highest share of women patent inventors in Europe, at 27 percent against a European average of 13.2 percent, a genuinely positive indicator that nonetheless coexists with the leadership gap and raises the question of whether patenting activity by Portuguese women microbiologists translates into leadership of commercialization or remains, like authorship, a form of participation that stops short of institutional power.

The authors close with a concrete research and policy agenda rather than broad calls for inclusion. They propose gender-disaggregated bibliometric and patent analyses specific to industrial microbiology, tracking first and last authorship, patent inventorship, and principal-investigator status over the same 2014 to 2026 period; longitudinal tracking of funding and promotion outcomes by gender within this subfield to identify where the main bottleneck occurs, whether in promotion criteria, evaluation panels, or access to leadership opportunities; systematic evaluation of whether existing initiatives such as Portugal’s Scientific Employment Stimulus and the European GENDERACTION Plus project have measurably improved retention and career progression; and qualitative research on mentoring, professional networks, and the composition of evaluation panels extended to microbiology-specific research groups and industry consortia. The argument is that closing the gender gap in industrial microbiology is not simply a matter of social justice, it is a structural requirement to improve scientific and economic competitiveness, particularly as the field faces managing antimicrobial resistance across global food systems, making fermentation processes more sustainable, and preserving traditional food heritage.

Subject of Research: Women in Portuguese industrial microbiology: a fifty-year perspective on progress and persistent barriers

Article Title: Women in Portuguese industrial microbiology: a fifty-year perspective on progress and persistent barriers

Article References: Semedo-Lemsaddek, T., Laranjo, M., & Saavedra, M. J. (2026). Women in Portuguese industrial microbiology: a fifty-year perspective on progress and persistent barriers. Frontiers in Industrial Microbiology, 4, Article 1939832. https://doi.org/10.3389/finmi.2026.1939832

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.3389/finmi.2026.1939832

Keywords: Women, Portuguese, industrial, microbiology, fifty-year, perspective, progress, persistent, barriers, scientific research