Immobilized Enzymes in the Food Industry

The chemical synthesis of amino acids leads to a racemic mixture. Only the L-form is usable for medicines and foodstuffs. Immobilized enzymes have been used for the industrial separation of enantiomers of various amino acids, e.g., amino acid acylase immobilized onto DEAE-Sephadex. Processing efficiency in the fermentation of amino acids has been greatly facilitated through the use of immobilized amino acid acylases such as L-glutamate aminoacylase. 

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Swaisgood has reviewed applications of immobilized enzymes in the food industry during the past 40 yr. He discusses not only the HFCS application, but also a variety of others, some of which are no longer employed commercially. Table 3 contains a summary of these applications. 

Table 3 Applications of immobilized enzymes in the food industry...

HE. S waisgood, Use of immobilized enzymes in the food industry , in Handbook of Food Enzymolr y , JR. Whitaker, AGJ. Voragen, DWS. Wong, eds, CRC Press, Chap 24, 2002... 

Advances in the understanding of structure-activity/selectivity relations for enzymes evolving from the use of x-ray, NMR, and other instrumental methods for characterization of enzyme structures should contribute to the development of improved immobilized enzyme systems for both analytical and industrial applications. Immobilized enzyme technology has enormous potential, but significant advances on several fronts are necessary prior to widespread industrial use of this technology. Katchalski-Katzir has discussed this problem in a review of past successes and failures in efforts to employ immobilized enzymes in the food, pharmaceutical, and chemicals industries. ... 

Microcrystalline chitin has been used as a thickening/gelling agent in the binding, stabilizing, and texturing of food [58]. Chitin is widely used to immobilize enzymes and whole cells enzyme immobilization has applications in the food industry, such as clarification of fruit juices and... 

Other efforts in the food industry have ben made to utilize immobilized enzymes. One is to use cellulose from waste paper, wood chips, or sugar cane, degrade it to glucose, and convert this sugar unit back to starch, as edible material. All these processes are enzyme-catalyzed and should be applicable to enzyme technology. 

Figure 10-22 Methods of Immobilizing Enzymes. Source From H.H. Weetall, Immobilized Enzymes and Their Application in the Food and Beverage Industry, Process Biochem., Vol. 10, pp. 3-6, 1975.

Weetall, H.H. 1975. Immobilized enzymes and their application in the food and beverage industry. Process Biochem. 10 3-6. 

Enzymes, in both soluble and immobilized forms, are also increasingly being employed in the food processing industry to convert other sugars with low sweetening power into more potent sweeteners. As examples, glucose is isomerized to fructose, which is 2.5 times as sweet, by an immobilized glucose... 

Enzymes, isolated from their source organisms, are used industrially as homogeneous or immobilized catalysts in the textile and leather, detergent, starch, food, beverages, paper and pulp industries, as well as in bioremediation. Traditionally, enzymes are used as homogeneous catalysts in aqueous solutions. The findings in the mid-1980s that enzymes are also active catalysts in nearly anhydrous environments expanded their potential use considerably. Oils and fats, for example, are now processed with enzymes. 

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