Each year, economic losses in the food industry due to spoilage of grain,
aquatic products and fruit are huge. People now express more concern about food
safety and nutrition, therefore, the need for green preservatives is also growing.
Epsilon-poly-L-lysine (ε-PL), a cationic polyamino acid with 25–35 L-lysine residues,
possesses broad-spectrum antimicrobial activity, biodegradable properties, resistance to
high temperature, and non-toxicity and can dissolve in water. So, it has been
extensively applied in the field of preservatives for foodstuffs, agriculture and
biomedicine. Thus, the chapter mainly focuses on the recent research on microbial
synthesis, production enhancement, and antimicrobial mechanism, as well as
improving food safety, its utilization in food packaging materials and agriculture of εPL .
Keywords: Agriculture, Antimicrobial activity, Antimicrobial mechanism, Food preservative, Food packaging materials, Food safety, ε-poly-L-lysine, Microbial synthesis, Natural amino-acid homopolymers, Production enhancement.
