Enzyme Engineering Research: Applications and Future Promise

With the great insights on enzyme catalytic mechanisms, biosynthesis, structure, and the rapid development of physical and chemical technology, the rapid rise of molecular enzymology and enzyme engineering has been promoted, making enzyme engineering an important role in bioengineering. In fact, it is an epoch-making leap in human understanding of enzymes, transformation of new enzymes and extensive use of enzymes.

The microbial enzyme source is the main source of enzyme engineering research. Biodiversity is closely related to human survival. It has been recognized because of microbial diversity, rapid growth rate, controllability of culture, low production cost, and easy gene mutation. The advantages of clonal recombination and high-efficiency expression enable humans to quickly obtain excellent genetic engineering bacteria, and the microbial enzyme source will undoubtedly play a greater role.

Enzyme modification with genetic engineering and protein engineering are the main directions. The relationship between enzyme structure and function is still the basis of enzyme engineering research and the core of support: the success or failure of engineering or designing new enzymes lies in the accurate comprehension of the relationship between the static, dynamic structure and catalytic mechanism of natural enzymes, and also depends on the molecular structure of the gene template.

The construction of new enzymes different from natural functional enzymes is another frontier of enzyme engineering research. Catalytic antibody (also known as abzymes) is an immunoglobulin that people give to their catalytic function. The binding site of an antibody to an antigen is similar to that of an enzyme, but has no catalytic activity. The enzymatic catalysis is in combination with a substrate to produce a transition. In order to reduce energy barriers, it is envisaged to prepare a catalytically active abzyme using a transition state analog as a hapten by an induction method, a copy method, an insertion method, a chemical modification method, and a genetic engineering method.

Synzymes is a synthetic polymer molecule with catalytic function. Currently, molecular imprinting and bio-imprinting techniques are used to prepare artificial enzymes. The principle is similar to that of abzymes transition state. Protease function and oxidoreductase have been preliminarily prepared. The artificial enzymes and artificial enzymes of catalytic function can also be used for the separation and purification of chiral drugs and compounds and the molecular recognition of biosensors. At present, the number of catalytic conversions of artificial enzymes is still very low, which requires multidisciplinary cooperation and a deep understanding of the molecular mechanism of enzyme catalysis. It is possible to outperform natural enzymes in special reactions.

The fields of enzymology and enzymatic engineering are also industrial applications of immobilized biocatalysts and enzyme reactors, as well as sugar engineering for enzymatic synthesis of sugar drugs involved in the regulation of life processes as biofunctional information molecules, and are believed to be high in electronic information technology. In the era of close cooperation between physics, chemical technology and biological high technology, enzyme engineering will inevitably deepen the realm, and there will be more innovative achievements in theory or application.