**5. Biotechnological potential functions of urease from legumes**

Many questions on why ureases are ubiquitous and multimeric has been asked, a possible answer is that the "earliest" enzyme may have gotten other form of "traits" during the evolutionary pressure of a biosphere that is complex which led to increase in competition [97]. Due to these "extra traits" findings on ureases, some applications of biotechnology can be suggested. Legumes such as *G. max* may be targeted and attacked by several organisms, which may include virus, fungi, nematodes, and insects. These pests and pathogens may cause serious damage in pods, seeds, stems, roots and leaves, and most times are specific to tissues [98]. Even though measures have been taken for control, pests decrease the *G. max* production globally by about 28% [99], there is need for urgent development of new technology for the control of these pests; also exploring natural compounds of plant is an important strategy. There are so many biotechnological potentials in respect to

plant ureases and their derived peptides. Many sources that are edible are found to be in abundant in ureases, which include legumes and potatoes, they are even eaten in their raw form e.g. cucumbers, or some fruits like watermelon and melon [97]. Hence, issues of bio-safety could possibly be managed better since es-SBU, JBU and Jaburetox' derived peptide seems to be non-toxic to mammalians [100, 101], the fungi toxic and entomotoxic characteristics of these molecules are very important when putting into consideration the strategies biotechnology which aims to provide security to crops that are relevant commercially against natural enemies. The proof of an *in vivo* effect of *G. max* urease in protecting the plant against fungi [102] are creating excitement. The chances of choosing *G. max* cultivars having higher content of urease or to increase the production of these proteins found in the plant via genetic manipulations, so as to improve the resistance to fungi and insects, is encouraging. In addition, the premise of utilizing naturally occurring proteins in plant to increase resistance seems to be more appealing to the public more than the option of foreign genes insertion (from animals or microorganisms) into crops. As stated some time back that *G. max* having a high ureases content could be also agronomically valuable, not regarding the defense function, for allowing more thorough absorption of fertilizer containing urea by the plant [33, 39]. More so, considering the fact that *G. max* meal is widely used as feed for animals and the potential of becoming a source of protein to humans, a higher content of urease in *G. max* could be interesting for increasing nutritional quality of *G. max*, after processing it appropriately, because urease has higher methionine content more than many other *G. max* seed proteins. *G. max* has a very low amount of amino acids containing sulfur, about half of which are regarded as best as feed for animal. Even though this issue can be dealt with by supplementing the feed with free methionine, the supplementation are associated with problems, including leaching of the methionine when processing the degradation of bacteria leading to formation of volatile sulfides that are not desirable [103]. Improving methionine content in *G. max* by increasing the biosynthesis of endogenous proteins, like ureases, is an approach that is so interesting.
