Lipase – The fascinating dynamics of enzyme in seed storage and germination – A real challenge to pearl millet

•Pearl millet is considered as ‘nutri-cereal’ because of high nutrient density.•Lipase is stable and versatile enzyme involved in diverse biological processes.•Lipase causes hydrolytic rancidity and off-odour development in pearl millet flour.•Identified 2180 putative lipase transcripts from pearl millet.•Physiochemical treatments reduce the lipase activity in pearl millet flour. Pearl millet is considered as ‘nutri-cereal’ because of high nutrient density of the seeds. The grain has limited use because of low keeping quality of the flour due to the activities of rancidity causing enzymes like lipase, lox, pox and PPO. Among all the enzymes, lipase is most notorious because of its robust nature and high activity under different conditions. we have identified 2180 putative transcripts showing homology with different variants of lipase precursor through transcriptome data mining (NCBI BioProject acc. no. PRJNA625418). Lipase plays dual role of facilitating the germination of seeds and deteriorating the quality of the pearl millet flour through hydrolytic rancidity. Different physiochemical methods like heat treatment, micro oven, hydrothermal, etc. have been developed to inhibit lipase activity in pearl millet flour. There is further need to develop improved processing technologies to inhibit the hydrolytic and oxidative rancidity in the floor with enhanced shelf-life.