Chapter 8 - Recent approaches and innovations for enzyme engineering used in industrial biotechnology

Abstract

Industrial biotechnology has largely relied on microbial enzymes due to ease of cultivation, manoeuvrability, and high yield. In order to achieve optimal activity and target yield, a number of strategies such as directed evolution, enzyme promiscuity, enzyme immobilization, and strain engineering have been deployed. The promiscuous activity of several enzymes has been investigated, especially with the aid of computational tools, leading to the discovery of novel production routes and substrates for numerous industrially relevant products. Enzymes can be tailored for suitability to the specific demands of an industrial process by the generation of enzyme variants through enzyme engineering. Protein engineering approaches such as rational design and directed evolution combined with high throughput screening techniques have been instrumental in the generation of novel enzyme variants with superior characteristics. Recent innovations such as the development of novel carrier matrices have bolstered the classical strategy of enzyme immobilization. Finally, the production of industrial enzymes necessitates a robust expression platform. Some of the recent developments toward the evolution of cell free systems have helped in overcoming a number of hurdles associated with traditional expression methodologies. This chapter provides a glimpse into some of these strategies along with the latest achievements and innovations in this field.