Abstract: Cellulase can efficiently degrade cellulose to produce monosaccharides, with valuable potential in textile, paper, food, feed and other industries. Recently, animal-originated cellulase has drawn widespread attention due to its excellent ability in cellulose biodegradation. As a noxious invasive gastropod that has colonized South China for forty years, the apple snail  has caused severe damage to rice production and wetland biodiversity. The strong digestive ability of apple snail on plants is closely related to the endogenous cellulase. We carried out a comprehensive analysis on the endogenous cellulase in apple snail by summarizing coding characteristics, factors determining endogenous cellulose activity, gene expression and utilization. There were significant differences in molecular weight, gene length, open reading frame length, homology of the endogenous cellulaseencoding gene of apple snails. Environmental factors, including pH, temperature, metal ions, anions and chelating agents, greatly affected enzyme activity. Genetic engineering and optimized strain cultivation could improve the production efficiency of endogenous cellulase in apple snails. The endogenous cellulase of apple snails helped improve biological efficiency and yield of edible fungi, increase the utilization rate of animal feed, and enhance fruit and vegetable juice extraction. The expression of endogenous cellulase gene in beer yeast helped increase ethanol production. According to the problems in applying endogenous cellulase of apple snail, we put forward countermeasures for accelerating the utilization of the endogenous cellulase of apple snail and suggestions for emphasizing the research on the endogenous cellulase from other Pomacea snails.

Key words: gastropod,  , Ampullariidae, biodegradation, enzyme activity, clone and expression.