L-Asparaginase a Biotherapeutic for Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia-A Molecular Perspective

L-asparaginase (L-asparagine amino hydrolase) is an enzyme which was clinically proved as an antitumor agent to treat acute lymphoblastic leukemia. It catalyzes L-asparagine hydrolysis to L-aspartate and ammonia, and the depletion of asparagine causes cytotoxicity to leukemic cells. Microbial L-asparaginase (ASNase) production has attracted good attention regarding its cost effectiveness and ecofriendliness. The focus of this review is to provide a discussion regarding the microbial ASNase production, purification, its mechanism of action, sources, therapeutic side effects and focusing on the future prospects like protein engineering, recombinant microorganisms to develop a efficient therapeutics with significantly less side effects. This study is also focusing on the production of ASNases from new sources with improvement in the availability as a drug, and issues related to reducing the cost of the drug by improving the pharmacokinetics, pharmaco-dynamics and toxicological profiles in producing the ASNase enzyme.