Enzyme disadvantages

The primary disadvantage of the conjugate addition approach is the necessity of performing two chiral operations (resolution or asymmetric synthesis) ia order to obtain exclusively the stereochemicaHy desired end product. However, the advent of enzymatic resolutions and stereoselective reduciag agents has resulted ia new methods to efficiently produce chiral enones and CO-chain synthons, respectively (see Enzymes, industrial Enzymes in ORGANIC synthesis). Eor example, treatment of the racemic hydroxy enone (70) with commercially available porciae pancreatic Hpase (PPL) ia vinyl acetate gave a separable mixture of (5)-hydroxyenone (71) and (R)-acetate (72) with enantiomeric excess (ee) of 90% or better (204). 

Poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) molecules attached to adenosine deaminase (ADA) have been used in patients exhibiting symptoms of the severe combined immunodeficiency syndrome (SCID) caused by ADA deficiency. The modified enzyme has a plasma half-life of weeks as compared to the unmodified enzyme (minutes) (248). PEG-L-asparaginase has induced remissions in patients with non-Hodgkin s lymphoma (248). However, one disadvantage of PEG-enzyme treatment is its expense, ie, a year s treatment costs about 60,000 (248). 

Biotransformations are carried out by either whole cells (microbial, plant, or animal) or by isolated enzymes. Both methods have advantages and disadvantages. In general, multistep transformations, such as hydroxylations of steroids, or the synthesis of amino acids, riboflavin, vitamins, and alkaloids that require the presence of several enzymes and cofactors are carried out by whole cells. Simple one- or two-step transformations, on the other hand, are usually carried out by isolated enzymes. Compared to fermentations, enzymatic reactions have a number of advantages including simple instmmentation reduced side reactions, easy control, and product isolation. 

The variety of enzyme-catalyzed kinetic resolutions of enantiomers reported ia recent years is enormous. Similar to asymmetric synthesis, enantioselective resolutions are carried out ia either hydrolytic or esterification—transesterification modes. Both modes have advantages and disadvantages. Hydrolytic resolutions that are carried out ia a predominantiy aqueous medium are usually faster and, as a consequence, require smaller quantities of enzymes. On the other hand, esterifications ia organic solvents are experimentally simpler procedures, aHowiag easy product isolation and reuse of the enzyme without immobilization. 

Chemical lysis, or solubilization of the cell wall, is typically carried out using detergents such as Triton X-100, or the chaotropes urea, and guanidine hydrochloride. This approach does have the disadvantage that it can lead to some denaturation or degradation of the produci. While favored for laboratory cell disruption, these methods are not typically used at the larger scales. Enzymatic destruction of the cell walls is also possible, and as more economical routes to the development of appropriate enzymes are developed, this approach could find industrial application. Again, the removal of these additives is an issue. 

These are major disadvantage of the esterase resolution process. Since die optimum pH of die enzymic reaction is generally on the alkaline side, die esters used as substrates are non-enzymatically hydrolysed and die optical purity of die L-amino adds obtained is generally low. Also the substrate has to be protected at the amino group in most cases in order to prevent formation of diketopiperasines. The esterase method is not attractive in practice and to the best of our knowledge is not used on an industrial scale. 

However, there are disadvantages to using immobilised cells. The cell may contain numerous catalytically active enzymes, which may catalyse unwanted side reactions. Also, the cell membrane itself may serve as a diffusion barrier, and may reduce productivity. The matrix may sharply reduce productivity if the microorganism is sensitive to product inhibition. One of the disadvantages of immobilised cell reactors is that the physiological state of the microorganism cannot be controlled. 

Nevertheless, despite the inherent disadvantages of exclusion chromatography, there are instances where it is the only practical method of choice. The technique is widely used in the separation of macro-molecules of biological origin, e.g. polypeptides, proteins, enzymes, etc. In fact, it is in this area of biotechnology where the major growth in HPLC techniques appears to be taking place. 

Such isolated enzyme approaches for deracemization have a clear disadvantage in that they require two operational manipulations with an intermediate recovery step. A one-pot strategy is offered by employing whole-cell biotransformations with strains containing set(s) of complementary dehydrogenases operating in both biooxidative and bioreductive modes. Trace amounts of the intermediate ketone species can be isolated in several cases. In order to lead to an efficient deracemization... 

Substances that do not target the active site but display inhibition by allosteric mechanisms are associated with a lower risk of unwanted interference with related cellular enzymes. Allosteric inhibition of the viral polymerase is employed in the case of HIV-1 nonnucleosidic RT inhibitors (NNRTl, see chapter by Zimmermann et al., this volume) bind outside the RT active site and act by blocking a conformational change of the enzyme essential for catalysis. A potential disadvantage of targeting regions distant from the active site is that these may be subject to a lower selective pressure for sequence conservation than the active site itself, which can lower the threshold for escape of the virus by mutation. 

The experimental results in Fig. 27 show the influence of the reactor system (see Fig. 28) on the disintegration of enzyme activity. It was found that the low-stress bladed impeller results in less activity loss than the propeller stirrer which causes much higher maximum energy dissipation ,. The gentle motion the blade impeller produces means that stress is so low that its disadvantage of worse micro mixing in NaOH (in comparison with the propeller) is more than compensated. 

To outweigh disadvantages of the kinetic resolution presented above, an enzymatic desymmetrization of prochiral sulfinyldiacetates 19 was performed. The use of various enzymes, PLE, a-chymotrypsin (a-CT) ° and PPL," made it... 

The disadvantage of this method is that only presence, but not activity of the enzyme is monitored. 

As we demonstrate in this chapter, enzymes can be extremely active electrocatalysts at ambient temperatures and mild pH, and have significantly higher reaction selectivity than precious metals. The main disadvantage in applying redox enzymes for electrocatalysis arises from their large size, which means that the catalytic active site density is low. Enzymes also have a relatively short hfetime (usually not more than a few months), making them more suited to disposable applications. 

Most suitable would be the use of a perfectly NH4+ ion-selective glass electrode however, a disadvantage of this type of enzyme electrode is the time required for the establishment of equilibrium (several minutes) moreover, the normal Nernst response of 59 mV per decade (at 25° C) is practically never reached. Nevertheless, in biochemical investigations these electrodes offer special possibilities, especially because they can also be used in the reverse way as an enzyme-sensing electrode, i.e., by testing an enzyme with a substrate layer around the bulb of the glass electrode. 

Another approach has been to immobilize proteins within arrays of microfabricated polyacrylamide gel pads (Arenkov et al., 2000). Nanoliters of protein solutions are transferred to 100 x 100 x 20-pM gel pads and assayed with antibodies that are labeled with a fluorescent tag. Antigen imbedded in the gel pads can be detected with high sensitivity and specificity (Arenkov et al., 2000). Furthermore, enzymes such as alkaline phosphatase can be immobilized in the gel pads and enzymatic activity is readily detected upon the addition of an indicator substrate. The main advantage of the use of the threedimensional gel pad for fixation of proteins is the large capacity for immobilized molecules. In addition, the pads in the array are separated from one another by a hydrophobic surface. Thus, each pad behaves as a small test tube for assay of protein-protein interactions and enzymatic reactions (Arenkov et al., 2000). The disadvantage of the method is the need to microfabricate the array of gel pads in that microfabrication is... 

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