JENA, Germany, May 31 (UPI) --Microbes inside the guts of animals, including humans, produce enzymes that break down food. These enzymes team-up with those naturally produced by the body to aid ...

A research team at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology in Jena, Germany, shows in a new study how leaf beetles could successfully use new and previously indigestible food sources in the ...

Many plant-feeding insects need microbial enzymes, such as pectinases, that degrade plant cell walls; yet some insects have overcome this dependency in a surprising way. Now researchers found that ...

Microbial pectinolytic enzymes encompass a suite of biocatalysts, chiefly polygalacturonases, pectate lyases and pectin methylesterases, that cleave and de-esterify the complex pectic polysaccharides ...