Production of specific-structured triacylglycerols by lipase-catalyzed reactions: a review

Regiospecificity is one of the major advantages of using lipase technology for the modification of oils and fats to produce high-value added products, such as cocoa butter equivalents, human milk fat substitutes, and other sp ecific-structured lipids. Due to the high cost of biocatalysts, the mainstr eam applications of lipases for normal oils and fats are still limited. The refore, positional specificity of lipases has the priority and will be the target property to be exploited for commercial and industrial developments, because no chemical method has such a specificity and is promising or poss ible for this task. In this paper, encouraging products resulting from this regiospecificity are reviewed together with the critical evaluation of the ir reaction schemes, side reactions and by-products, sources of substrate o ils and acyl donors, and production processes.