protease in food.

The use of proteases in the food industry dates back to antiquity. They have been routinely used for various purposes such as cheese making, baking, preparation of soya hydrolysates and meat tenderization.
The major application of proteases in the dairy industry is in the manufacture of cheese the milk coagulating enzymes fall into 3 main categories:
(i) animal rennets
(ii) microbial milk coagulants
(iii) genetically engineered chymosin.
In cheese making industries chymosin is preferred due to its high specificity for casein, which is responsible for its excellent performance in cheese making. The proteases produced by GRAS – cleared microbes such as Mucor meheii, Bacillus subtilis and Endothia parasitica are gradually replacing chymosin in cheese making.
In Baking industries wheat flour is a major component of baking processes. In contains an insoluble protein called gluten. Endo and exoproteinases from Aspergillus oryzae have been used to modify wheat gluten by limited proteolysis. Bacterial proteases are used to improve the extensibility and strength of the dough.
Proteases have been used from ancient times to prepare soy sauce and other soy products. The alkaline and neutral proteases of fungal origin play an important role in the processing of soy sauce.