**4. Concluding remarks**

Despite being in general a relatively well-known process, as shown throughout this chapter, several steps of the bacterial alginate biosynthesis need to be further explored, especially those involving regulatory genes and proteins, to determine their full role during the biosynthetic process and, more importantly, how this knowledge can be useful in the production of tailored alginate polymers for various industrial and commercial uses. In addition to the alginate-producing Pseudomonads and *Azotobacter* spp. *Bacterial Alginate Biosynthesis and Metabolism DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.109295*

that have been the focus herein, a vast number of organisms bear in their biochemical machinery enzymes capable of degrading alginate (alginate lyases), including algae, marine invertebrates, and fungi, some very specific bacteriophages, and several bacteria such as *Bacillus circulans*, *Klebsiella pneumoniae*, *Sphingomonas* spp., and *Vibrio alginolyticus*, among others. The role of lyases in organisms that do not produce alginate can be explained by their metabolic ability to use alginate as a sole or secondary carbon source. Interest in these alginate-degrading enzymes has increased in recent years, as it has been shown that alginate-derived oligosaccharides have interesting biotechnological potential, as widely reported in the scientific literature. However, this is a topic that would require an entirely new chapter to adequately address.
