Cellulose is the most abundant biomaterial in the biosphere and the major component of plant biomass.
Cellulase is an enzymatic system required for conversion of renewable cellulose biomass into free sugar for
subsequent use in different applications. Cellulase system mainly consists of three individual enzymes namely:
endoglucanase, exoglucanase and β-glucosidases. β-Glucosidases are ubiquitous enzymes found in all living
organisms with great biological significance. β-Glucosidases have also tremendous biotechnological applications
such as biofuel production, beverage industry, food industry, cassava detoxification and oligosaccharides synthesis.
Microbial β-glucosidases are preferred for industrial uses because of robust activity and novel properties exhibited
by them. This review aims at describing the various biochemical methods used for screening and evaluating
β-glucosidases activity from microbial sources. Subsequently, it generally highlights techniques used for purification
of β-glucosidases. It then elaborates various biochemical and molecular properties of this valuable enzyme such as
pH and temperature optima, glucose tolerance, substrate specificity, molecular weight, and multiplicity. Furthermore,
it describes molecular cloning and expression of bacterial, fungal and metagenomic β-glucosidases. Finally, it
highlights the potential biotechnological applications of β-glucosidases
