Recent advance in the support and technology used in enzyme immobilization

Abstract

In the industrial biotechnology, the skill to prepare the immobilized enzyme with stability has proven to be one of the key steps in rendering an enzymatic process that is economically viable. Availability of the immobilized enzyme biocatalyst with improved activity and stability is also expected to reduce the expense of products. If properly designed, enzyme immobilization is also a very powerful tool to enhancing almost all enzyme properties, e.g., activity, stability, specificity and selectivity, reduction of inhibition. Due to the above advantages, enzyme immobilization has been a focus for biologists, chemists and enterprisers. This review is focused on advances over the last several years in enzyme immobilization. Several new type of carriers and technology have been implemented to improve traditional enzyme immobilization, which aimed to enhance enzyme loading, activity and stability to decrease the enzyme biocatalyst cost in industrial biotechnology. These include cross-linked enzyme aggregates (CLEAs), microwave-assistant immobilization, click chemistry technology, mesoporous support and single enzyme nanoparticle. In addition, with the growing attention paid to cascade enzymatic reaction and in vitro synthetic biology, it is possible that multi-enzyme co-immobilization would be one of the next goals in the future. Key words: Enzyme immobilization, cross-linked enzyme aggregates (CLEAs), microwave irradiation, mesocellular siliceous foams (MCFs), click chemistry, single enzyme nanoparticle.