Enzyme immobilization offer improvements

Despite the limitations, the great success of enzyme immobilization in diagnostics, pharmaceutical, food and chemical industries is undeniable12, 3. The decision whether one should use a soluble enzyme preparation or an immobilized enzyme does not have a universal solution and can be decided only on a case by case basis. Ordinarily, if the cost of an enzyme represents a significant portion of the overall cost or if isolation of the final product is complicated by the presence of the soluble protein, the cost of immobilization can be offset by the gains in productivity and improved product quality. The intent of this section is to describe, in general terms with illustrative examples, the features and considerations of these broad classes of enzyme immobilization as they impact their application to biocatalysis. Detailed experimental protocols are available in the original literature and exemplary protocols for these methods are offered in many excellent reviews and texts 14L... 

The enzyme can be immobilized on the electrode by several techniques (53). The simplest method, first used in 1962, is to trap an enzyme solution between the electrode surface and a semipermeable membrane. Another technique is to immobilize the enzyme in a polymer gel such as polyacrylamide which is coated on the electrode surface. Very thin-membrane films can be obtained by electropolymerization techniques (49,54,55) using polypyrrole, polyindole, or polyphenylenediamine films, among others. These thin films (qv) offer the advantage of improved diffusion of substrate and product that... 

A great savings in enzyme consumption can be achieved by immobilizing the enzyme in the reactor (Fig. 12). In addition to the smaller amount of enzyme required, immobilization often increases the stability of the enzyme. Several designs of immobiliz-ed-enzyme reactors (lERs) have been reported, with open-tubular and packed-bed being the most popular. Open-tubular reactors offer low dispersion but have a relatively small surface area for enzyme attachment. Packed-bed reactors provide extremely high surface areas and improved mass transport at the cost of more dispersion. 

Enzymes can be immobilized in sheets. One design had discs of enzymes fastened to a rotating shaft to improve mass transfer, and an alternate design had the feed stream flowing back and forth through sandwiches of sheets with enzyme. However, volumetric efficiency of such reactors is low because sheets with finite spacing offer less area than that of packed particles. 

Enzyme DNA hybridization assays with electrochemical detection can offer enhanced sensitivity and reduced instrumentation costs in comparison with their optical counterparts. Efforts to prevent non-specific binding of the codissolved enzyme and to avoid fouling problems by selecting conditions suitable to amplify the electrode response have been reported by Heller and co-workers [107]. A disposable electrochemical sensor based on an ion-exchange film-coated screen-printed electrode was described by Limoges and co-workers for an enzyme nucleic acid hybridization assay using alkaline phosphatase [108] or horseradish peroxidase [109]. In another methodology to improve sensitivity, a carbon paste electrode with an immobilized nucleotide on the electrode surface and methylene blue as hybridization indicator was coupled, by Mascini and co-workers [110], with PGR amplification of DNA extracted from human blood for the electrochemical detection of virus. 

Encapsulation of enzymes in LMs offers further improvements for immobilization of complex enzyme systems, as the enzymes / cofactors, etc. are situated in aqueous droplets surrounded by a stable liquid hydrocarbon film (Figure 1). Instead of the physical pores present in microcapsules, the HC barrier, which has a diffusion thickness of about 0.1-1.0 p, effectively blocks all molecules except those which are oil-soluble or transportable by the selected carriers. Encapsulation of enzymes in LMs is accomplished simply by emulsifying aqueous enzyme solutions. Hence, LMs offer many advantages over other systems used for separation and eirzyme immobilization they are inexpensive and easy to prepare they promote rapid mass transport they are selective for various chemical species they can be disrupted (demulsified) for recovery of internal aqueous solutions gradients of pH and concentration (even of small molecules) can be maintained across the HC barrier multiple enzyme / cofactor systems can be coencapsulated and enzymatic reaction and separation can be combined. Some of the potential disadvantages of LMs for enzyme encapsulation have been discussed earlier. 

In the present work, green coconut fiber was successfiilly used to immobilize lipase B from C. antarctica by adsorption. During adsorption studies, it was observed that adsorption equilibrium was achieved afler a contact time of 2 h (in case of o=30 U/ml and Eo=(0 U/ml) or 6 h ( o=90 U/ml). Moreover, an improvement of hydrolytic activity of immobilized CALB is also observed with increasing concentrations of lipase offered to immobilization. This increase in activity is due to formation of multilayers, confirmed by thermal stability essays. Two plateaus of enzyme activity were observed when the pH of lipase solution during adsorption was varied in the range studied. This behavior is typical of an ionic support At 50 and 60 °C, the adsorbed enzyme was, respectively, 2- and 92-fold more stable than the soluble enzyme. At 60 °C, however, Novozyme 435 s stability was higher than that of CALB-7A. TUIer 10 h of incubation at 60 °C, Novozyme 435 retained more than 70% of its initial activity, whereas CALB-7A retained only 50%. Last but not least operational stabilities studies of butyl butyrate synthesis, compared to a commercial derivative, showed that C7U..B-7A is a suitable biocatalyst to be used in the synthesis of flavors. 

Adsorption is a simple and straightforward route for biocatalyst immobilization which offers unique advantages over soluble enzymes, such as enhanced activity, increased selectivity, improved stability and reusability. For example, Assemblase, the commercial name of immobilized pencillin-G acylase from E. coli, has been used by industry for manufacture of the semi-synthetic p-lactam antibiotic cephalexin. ... 

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