Complete reactivation of immobilized derivatives of a trimeric glutamate dehydrogenase from Thermus thermophillus

First, the enzyme immobilized on cyanide bromide agarose beads (CNBr) (that did not involve all enzyme subunits in the immobilization) has been crosslinked with aldehyde-dextran. This preparation did not any longer release enzyme subunits and become fully stable at pH 4 and 25 °C.Then, the stabilities of many different enzyme preparations (enzyme immobilized on CNBr, that derivative further crosslinked with aldehyde-dextran, enzyme immobilized on highly activated amino-epoxy supports, GDH immobilized on supports having a few animo groups and many epoxy groups, GDH immobilized on glyoxyl-agarose beads at pH 7, and that preparation further incubated at pH 10, and finally the enzyme immobilized on this support directly at pH 10) were compared at pH 4 and high temperatures, conditions where both dissociation and distortion play a relevant role in the enzyme inactivation. The most stable preparation was that prepared at pH 7 and incubated at pH 10, followed by GDH immobilized on amino and epoxy supports and the third one was the enzyme immobilized on glyoxyl-agarose at pH 10.The incubation of all enzyme preparations in saturated guanidine solutions produced the full inactivation of all enzyme preparations. When not all enzyme subunits were immobilized, activity was not recovered at all. Among the other derivatives, only glyoxyl preparations (the most inert supports and those where a more intense multipoint covalent attachment were expected) gave significant reactivation when re-incubated in aqueous medium. After optimization of the reactivation conditions, the enzyme immobilized at pH 7 and later incubated at pH 10 recovered 100% of the enzyme activity.     

The adsorption of multimeric enzymes on very lowly activated supports involves more enzyme subunits: Stabilization of a glutamate dehydrogenase from Thermus thermophilus by immobilization on heterofunctional supports

Glutamate dehydrogenase (GDH) from Thermus thermophilus is a homotrimeric enzyme that tends to dissociate at acidic pH values. GDH is readily adsorbed on highly activated anionic exchangers (HAAE), but hardly adsorbed on lowly activated supports (LAAE) or on highly activated epoxy supports. When using amino-epoxy supports, GDH immobilized on HAAE-epoxy and more slowly on LAAE-epoxy supports. Both immobilized biocatalysts were incubated at pH 10 for different times to increase the multipoint covalent attachment. LAAE-epoxy-GDH was stable at pH 4 and 25 °C, the enzyme stability did not depend on the enzyme concentration and did not release any subunit to the supernatant, in opposition to the results obtained using HAAE-epoxy supports. The general application of this strategy to stabilize multimeric enzymes was verified by immobilizing a crude protein extract. It seems that proteins adsorb on LAAE by the larger region of their surface (that is the one that involves the highest number of enzyme subunits), since it is the only area large enough to permit a multipoint ionic exchange on this LAAE. On the contrary, using HAAE, some proteins may become adsorbed by clusters that were rich in anionic groups and located in a corner of the multimer, involving only some of the subunits in the enzyme immobilization. That way, a careful design of the design of the support permits to take full advantage of the immobilization on heterofunctional supports.     

Glyoxyl-disulfide agarose: a tailor-made support for site-directed rigidification of proteins

A new strategy has been developed for site-directed immobilization/rigidification of genetically modified enzymes through multipoint covalent attachment on bifunctional disulfide-glyoxyl supports. Here the mechanism is described as a two-step immobilization/rigidification protocol where the enzyme is directly immobilized by thiol-disulfide exchange between the β-thiol of the single genetically introduced cysteine and the few disulfide groups presented on the support surface (3 μmol/g). Afterward, the enzyme is uniquely rigidified by multipoint covalent attachment (MCA) between the lysine residues in the vicinity of the introduced cysteine and the many glyoxyl groups (220 μmol/g) on the support surface. Both site-directed immobilization and rigidification have been possible only on these novel bifunctional supports. In fact, this technology has made possible to elucidate the protein regions where rigidification by MCA promoted higher protein stabilizations. Hence, rigidification of vicinity of position 333 from lipase 2 from Geobacillus thermocatenulatus (BTL2) promoted a stabilization factor of 33 regarding the unipunctual site-directed immobilized derivative. In the same context, rigidification of penicillin G acylase from E. coli (PGA) through position β201 resulted in a stabilization factor of 1069. Remarkably, when PGA was site-directed rigidified through that position, it presented a half-life time of 140 h under 60% (v/v) of dioxane and 4 °C, meaning a derivative eight times more stable than the PGA randomly immobilized on glyoxyl-disulfide agarose. Herein we have opened a new scenario to optimize the stabilization of proteins via multipoint covalent immobilization, which may represent a breakthrough in tailor-made tridimensional rigidification of proteins.     

Increase in conformational stability of enzymes immobilized on epoxy-activated supports by favoring additional multipoint covalent attachment*

Epoxy supports (Eupergit C) may be very suitable to achieve the multipoint covalent attachment of proteins and enzymes, therefore, to stabilize their three-dimensional structure. To achieve a significant multipoint covalent attachment, the control of the experimental conditions was found to be critical. A three-step immobilization/stabilization procedure is here proposed: 1) the enzyme is firstly covalently immobilized under very mild experimental conditions (e.g. pH 7.0 and 20 degrees C); 2) the already immobilized enzyme is further incubated under more drastic conditions (higher pH values, longer incubation periods, etc.) to "facilitate" the formation of new covalent linkages between the immobilized enzyme molecule and the support; 3) the remaining groups of the support are blocked to stop any additional interaction between the enzyme and the support. Progressive establishment of new enzyme-support attachments was showed by the progressive irreversible covalent immobilization of several subunits of multi-subunits proteins (all non-covalent structures contained in crude extracts of different microorganism, penicillin G acylase and chymotrypsin). This multipoint covalent attachment enabled the significant thermostabilization of two relevant enzymes, (compared with the just immobilized derivatives): chymotrypsin (5-fold factor) and penicillin G acylase (18-fold factor). Bearing in mind that this stabilization was additive to that achieved by conventional immobilization, the final stabilization factor become 100-fold comparing soluble penicillin G acylase and optimal derivative. These stabilizations were observed also when the inactivations were promoted by the enzyme exposure to drastic pH values or the presence of cosolvents.     

Immobilization of trypsin on chitosan gels: use of different activation protocols and comparison with other supports

Trypsin was immobilized on chitosan gels coagulated with 0.1 or 1 M NaOH and activated with glutaraldehyde or glycidol. The derivatives were characterized by their recovered activity, thermal (40, 55 and 70 degrees C) and alkaline (pH 11) stabilities, amount of enzyme immobilized on gels for several enzyme loads (8-14 mg(protein)/g(Gel)) and compared to agarose derivatives. Enzyme loads higher than 14 mg(protein)/g(Gel) can be immobilized on glutaraldehyde derivatives, which showed 100% immobilization yield and, for loads up to 8 mg(protein)/g(Gel), 100% recovered activity. Activation with glycidol led to lower immobilization yields than the ones obtained with glutaraldehyde, 61% for agarose-glyoxyl (AgGly) with low grade of activation and 16% for the chitosan-glyoxyl (ChGly), but allowed obtaining the most stable derivative (ChGly), that was 660-fold more stable than the soluble enzyme at 55 and 70 degrees C-approximately threefold more stable than AgGly. The ChGly derivative presented also the highest stability during incubation at pH 11. Analyses of lysine residue contents in soluble and immobilized trypsin indicated formation of multipoint bonds between enzyme and support, for glyoxyl derivatives.     

One-step purification, covalent immobilization, and additional stabilization of poly-His-tagged proteins using novel heterofunctional chelate-epoxy supports.

Epoxy supports covalently immobilize proteins following a two-step mechanism; that is, the protein is physically adsorbed and then the covalent reaction takes place. This mechanism has been exploited to combine the selectivity of metal chelate affinity chromatography with the covalent immobilization capacity of epoxy supports. In this way, it has been possible to accomplish, in a simple manner, the purification, immobilization, and stabilization of a poly-His-tagged protein. To fulfill this objective we developed a new kind of multifunctional epoxy support (chelate epoxy support [CES]), which was tested using a poly-His-tagged glutaryl acylase as a model protein (an alphabeta-heterodimeric enzyme of significant industrial interest). The selectivity of the immobilization in CES toward poly-His-tagged proteins was dependent to a large extent on the density and nature of the chelated metal. The highest selectivity was achieved by using low-density chelate groups (e.g., 5 micromol/g) and metals with a low affinity (e.g., Co). However, the rate of covalent immobilization of the protein by its reaction with the epoxy groups on the support significantly increased at alkaline pH values. The multipoint attachment to the CES also depended on the reaction time. The immobilization of both glutaryl acylase subunits was achieved by incubation of the enzyme derivative at pH 10 for 24 h, with the best enzyme derivative 100-fold more stable than the soluble enzyme. By taking advantage of the selectivity properties of the novel support, we were able to immobilize up to 30 mg of protein per gram of modified Eupergit 250 using either pure enzyme or a very crude enzyme extract.     

Preparation of a very stable immobilized biocatalyst of glucose oxidase from Aspergillus niger

Glucose oxidase (GOX) has been immobilized on different activated supports, including glyoxyl agarose, epoxy sepabeads and glutaraldehyde-activated supports. Immobilization onto supports pre-activated with glutaraldehyde rendered the most thermo-stable preparation of GOX. Therefore, as the glutaraldehyde chemistry gave a high stabilization of the enzyme, we proposed another technique for improving the multipoint attachment through glutaraldehyde: the enzyme was ionically adsorbed on cationic supports with primary amino groups and then the immobilized preparation was treated with a glutaraldehyde solution. The decrease on enzyme activity was <20%. Following this methodology, we achieved the highest stability of all the immobilization systems analyzed, showing a half-life 100 times higher than the soluble enzyme. Moreover, this derivative showed a higher stability in the presence of organic solvents (for instance methanol) or hydrogen epoxide than the ionically adsorbed enzyme or the soluble one. Therefore, the adsorption of GOX on aminated cationic support and subsequent treatment with glutaraldehyde was presented as a very successful methodology for achieving a very stable biocatalyst.     

Immobilization of enzymes on heterofunctional epoxy supports

Immobilization of enzymes and proteins on activated supports permits the simplification of the reactor design and may be used to improve some enzyme properties. In this sense, supports containing epoxy groups seem to be useful to generate very intense multipoint covalent attachment with different nucleophiles placed on the surface of enzyme molecules (e.g., amino, thiol, hydroxyl groups). However, the intermolecular reaction between epoxy groups and soluble enzymes is extremely slow. To solve this problem, we have designed "tailor-made" heterofunctional epoxy supports. Using these, immobilization of enzymes is performed via a two-step process: (i) an initial physical or chemical intermolecular interaction of the enzyme surface with the new functional groups introduced on the support surface and (ii) a subsequent intense intramolecular multipoint covalent reaction between the nucleophiles of the already immobilized enzyme and the epoxy groups of the supports. The first immobilization may involve different enzyme regions, which will be further rigidified by multipoint covalent attachment. The design of some heterofunctional epoxy supports and the performance of the immobilization protocols are described here. The whole protocol to have an immobilized and stabilized enzyme could take from 3 days to 1 week.     

Optimization of an industrial biocatalyst of glutaryl acylase: stabilization of the enzyme by multipoint covalent attachment onto new amino-epoxy Sepabeads

Glutaryl-7-aminocephalosporanic acid acylase (GA), an industrially relevant enzyme, has been immobilized onto very different supports, including glyoxyl agarose, heterofunctional epoxy Sepabeads, glutaraldehyde and cyanogen bromide (CNBr) activated supports. Immobilization onto amino-epoxy Sepabeads rendered the most thermo stable preparation of GA, with a half-life time eight times higher than the soluble enzyme, keeping 80% of the enzyme activity. Several parameters that affect the enzyme-support interaction (pH and incubation time) were studied. It was found that after immobilization onto amino-epoxy Sepabeads, incubation at alkaline pH and low temperature exerted dramatic stabilizing effects, increasing the half-life time of the derivative 130 times with respect to the soluble enzyme, while keeping unaltered its intrinsic activity. The loading capacity of the amino-epoxy Sepabeads proved to be very good with a maximum load of 62 mg of protein per g of support with 85 IU/g at 25 degrees C and 200 IU/g at 37 degrees C which makes it a biocatalyst of possible industrial application.     

Stabilization of a multimeric beta-galactosidase from Thermus sp. strain T2 by immobilization on novel heterofunctional epoxy supports plus aldehyde-dextran cross-linking

This work exemplifies the advantages of using a battery of new heterofunctional epoxy supports to immobilize enzymes. We have compared the performance of a standard Sepabeads-epoxy support with other Sepabeads-epoxy supports partially modified with boronate, iminodiacetic, metal chelates, and ethylenediamine in the immobilization of the thermostable beta-galactosidase from Thermus sp. strain T2 as a model system. Immobilization yields depended on the support, ranging from 95% using Sepabeads-epoxy-chelate, Sepabeads-epoxy-amino, or Sepabeads-epoxy-boronic to 5% using Sepabeads-epoxy-IDA. Moreover, immobilization rates were also very different when using different supports. Remarkably, the immobilized beta-galactosidase derivatives showed very improved but different stabilities after favoring multipoint covalent attachment by long-term alkaline incubation, the enzyme immobilized on Sepabeads-epoxy-boronic being the most stable. This derivative had some subunits of the enzyme not covalently attached to the support (detected by SDS-PAGE). This is a problem if the biocatalysts were to be used in food technology. The optimization of the cross-linking with aldehyde-dextran permitted the full stabilization of the quaternary structure of the enzyme. The optimal derivative was very active in lactose hydrolysis even at 70 degrees C (over 1000 IU/g), maintaining its activity after long incubation times under these conditions and with no risk of product contamination with enzyme subunits.     

Solid-phase chemical amination of a lipase from Bacillus thermocatenulatus to improve its stabilization via covalent immobilization on highly activated glyoxyl-agarose

In this paper, the stabilization of a lipase from Bacillus thermocatenulatus (BTL2) by a new strategy is described. First, the lipase is selectively adsorbed on hydrophobic supports. Second, the carboxylic residues of the enzyme are modified with ethylenediamine, generating a new enzyme having 4-fold more amino groups than the native enzyme. The chemical amination did not present a significant effect on the enzyme activity and only reduced the enzyme half-life by a 3-4-fold factor in inactivations promoted by heat or organic solvents. Next, the aminated and purified enzyme is desorbed from the support using 0.2% Triton X-100. Then, the aminated enzyme was immobilized on glyoxyl-agarose by multipoint covalent attachment. The immobilized enzyme retained 65% of the starting activity. Because of the lower p K of the new amino groups in the enzyme surface, the immobilization could be performed at pH 9 (while the native enzyme was only immobilized at pH over 10). In fact, the immobilization rate was higher at this pH value for the aminated enzyme than that of the native enzyme at pH 10. The optimal stabilization protocol was the immobilization of aminated BTL2 at pH 9 and the further incubation for 24 h at 25 degrees C and pH 10. This preparation was 5-fold more stable than the optimal BTL2 immobilized on glyoxyl agarose and around 1200-fold more stable than the enzyme immobilized on CNBr and further aminated. The catalytic properties of BTL2 could be greatly modulated by the immobilization protocol. For example, from (R/S)-2- O-butyryl-2-phenylacetic acid, one preparation of BTL2 could be used to produce the S-isomer, while other preparation produced the R-isomer.     

Immobilization–stabilization of the lipase from Thermomyces lanuginosus: Critical role of chemical amination

This paper describes the immobilization and stabilization of the lipase from Thermomyces lanuginosus (TLL) on glyoxyl agarose. Enzymes attach to this support only by the reaction between several aldehyde groups of the support and several Lys residues on the external surface of the enzyme molecules at pH 10. However, this standard immobilization procedure is unsuitable for TLL lipase due to the low stability of TLL at pH 10 and its low content on Lys groups that makes that the immobilization process was quite slow. The chemical amination of TLL, after reversible immobilization on hydrophobic supports, has been shown to be a simple and efficient way to improve the multipoint covalent attachment of this enzyme. The modification enriches the enzyme surface in primary amino groups with low pKb, thus allowing the immobilization of the enzyme at lower pH values. The aminated enzyme was rapidly immobilized at pH 9 and 10, with activities recovery of approximately 70%. The immobilization of the chemically modified enzyme improved its stability by 5-fold when compared to the non-modified enzyme during thermal inactivation and by hundreds of times when the enzyme was inactivated in the presence of organic solvents, being both glyoxyl preparations more stable than the enzyme immobilized on bromocyanogen.     

A novel heterofunctional epoxy-amino sepabeads for a new enzyme immobilization protocol: immobilization-stabilization of beta-galactosidase from Aspergillus oryzae

The properties of a new and commercially available amino-epoxy support (amino-epoxy-Sepabeads) have been compared to conventional epoxy supports to immobilize enzymes, using the beta-galactosidase from Aspergillus oryzae as a model enzyme. The new support has a layer of epoxy groups over a layer of ethylenediamine that is covalently bound to the support. This support has both a great anionic exchanger strength and a high density of epoxy groups. Epoxy supports require the physical adsorption of the proteins onto the support before the covalent binding of the enzyme to the epoxy groups. Using conventional supports the immobilization rate is slow, because the adsorption is of hydrophobic nature, and immobilization must be performed using high ionic strength (over 0.5 M sodium phosphate) and a support with a fairly hydrophobic nature. Using the new support, immobilization may be performed at moderately low ionic strength, it occurs very rapidly, and it is not necessary to use a hydrophobic support. Therefore, this support should be specially recommended for immobilization of enzymes that cannot be submitted to high ionic strength. Also, both supports may be expected to yield different orientations of the proteins on the support, and that may result in some advantages in specific cases. For example, the model enzyme became almost fully inactivated when using the conventional support, while it exhibited an almost intact activity after immobilization on the new support. Furthermore, enzyme stability was significantly improved by the immobilization on this support (by more than a 12-fold factor), suggesting the promotion of some multipoint covalent attachment between the enzyme and the support (in fact the enzyme adsorbed on an equivalent cationic support without epoxy groups was even slightly less stable than the soluble enzyme).     

The co-operative effect of physical and covalent protein adsorption on heterofunctional supports

It has been found that the enzymes penicillin G acylase from Escherichia coli (PGA) and lipase from Bacillus thermocatenulatus (BTL) did not significantly adsorb on highly activated amino-agarose beads at pH 7 (a support where 85–90% of a crude extract of proteins become adsorbed). Moreover, it has been found that these enzymes do not covalently immobilize on highly activated epoxy-agarose beads at pH 7. However, both enzymes slowly immobilize on heterofunctional supports having a high density of amino–epoxy groups. The immobilized enzymes retain a high percentage of activity (more than 90% for PGA and 60% for BTL). On the other hand, the immobilization of a crude extract of proteins on amino–epoxy supports under conditions where only a limited protein ionic exchange was permitted (by using high ionic strength or lowly activated supports), also permitted a similar high immobilization yield of the proteins. Similarly, glutamate dehydrogenase (GDH) and β-galactosidase from Thermus thermophilus can be fully immobilized under conditions where less than 20% of these enzymes can be ionically exchanged in the aminated support. The results suggested that the percentage of proteins that may be physically adsorbed on the support becomes irreversibly immobilized by the covalent reaction between the nucleophilic groups in the protein surface and the very near epoxy groups of the support (in an almost intramolecular reaction). Thus, using these supports, it is possible to immobilize almost all the proteins by anionic exchange, that is, the area with the highest density in anionic groups. In many cases, this region could not correspond to the protein regions usually utilized to immobilize proteins. This way, it is possible to achieve, in a very simple fashion and without modifying the protein, new orientations of some immobilized enzymes and proteins.     

Immobilization and stabilization of a bimolecular aggregate of the lipase from Pseudomonas fluorescens by multipoint covalent attachment

The soluble lipase from Pseudomonas fluorescens (PFL) forms bimolecular aggregates in which the hydrophobic active centers of the enzyme monomers are in close contact. This bimolecular aggregate could be immobilized by multipoint covalent linkages on glyoxyl supports at pH 8.5. The monomer of PFL obtained by incubation of the soluble enzyme in the presence of detergent (0.5% TRITON X-100) could not be immobilized under these conditions. The bimolecular aggregate has two amino terminal residues in the same plane. A further incubation of the immobilized derivative under more alkaline conditions (e.g., pH 10.5) allows a further multipoint attachment of lysine (Lys) residues located in the same plane as the amino terminal residues. Monomeric PFL was immobilized at pH 10.5 in the presence of 0.5% TRITON X-100. The properties of both PFL derivatives were compared. In general, the bimolecular derivatives were more active, more selective and more stable both in water and in organic solvents than the monomolecular ones. The bimolecular derivative showed twice the activity and a much higher selectivity (100 versus 20) for the hydrolysis of R,S-2-hydroxy-4-phenylbutyric acid ethyl ester (HPBEt) in aqueous media at pH 5.0 compared to the monomeric derivative. In experiments measuring thermal inactivation at 75 °C, the bimolecular derivative was 5-fold more stable than the monomeric derivative (and 50-fold more stable than a one-point covalently immobilized PFL derivative), and it had a half-life greater than 4 h. In organic solvents (cyclohexane and tert-amyl alcohol), the bimolecular derivative was much more stable and more active than the monomeric derivative in catalyzing the transesterification of olive oil with benzyl alcohol.     

Characterization of a tannase from Emericela nidulans immobilized on ionic and covalent supports for propyl gallate synthesis

The extracellular tannase from Emericela nidulans was immobilized on different ionic and covalent supports. The derivatives obtained using DEAE-Sepharose and Q-Sepharose were thermally stable from 60 to 75 °C, with a half life (t₅₀) >24 h at 80 °C at pH 5.0. The glyoxyl-agarose and amino-glyoxyl derivatives showed a thermal stability which was lower than that observed for ionic supports. However, when the stability to pH was considered, the derivatives obtained from covalent supports were more stable than those obtained from ionic supports. DEAE-Sepharose and Q-Sepharose derivatives as well as the free enzyme were stable in 30 and 50 % (v/v) 1-propanol. The CNBr-agarose derivative catalyzed complete tannic acid hydrolysis, whereas the Q-Sepharose derivative catalyzed the transesterification reaction to produce propyl gallate (88 % recovery), which is an important antioxidant.     

Stabilization of heterodimeric enzyme by multipoint covalent immobilization: Penicillin G acylase from Kluyvera citrophila

We have developed a strategy for immobilization-stabilization of penicillin G acylase (PGA) from Kluyvera citrophila by controlled multipoint covalent attachment to agarose-aldehyde gels. This enzyme is composed by two dissimilar subunits noncovalently bound. Thus, in this article we establish clear correlations between enzyme stabilization and the multipoint immobilization and/or between enzyme stabilization and the involvement of the two subunits in the attachment of them to the support. We have demonstrated that important thermal stabilizations of derivatives were only obtained through a very intense enzyme-support multipoint attachment involving the whole enzyme molecule. In this way, we have prepared derivatives preserving more than 90% of catalytic activity and being more than 1000-fold more stable than soluble and one-point attached enzyme. In addition, the involvement of the two subunits in the covalent attachment to the support has proved to be essential to develop interesting strategies for reactivation of inactivated enzyme molecules [e.g., by refolding of immobilized PGA after previous unfolding with urea and sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS)]. (c) 1993 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Design of new immobilized-stabilized carboxypeptidase a derivative for production of aromatic free hydrolysates of proteins

This paper presents stable carboxypeptidase A (CPA)-glyoxyl derivatives, to be used in the controlled hydrolysis of proteins. They were produced after immobilizing-stabilizing CPA on cross-linked 6% agarose beads, activated with low and high concentrations of aldehyde groups, and different immobilization times. The CPA-glyoxyl derivatives were compared to other agarose derivatives, prepared using glutaraldehyde as activation reactant. The most stabilized CPA-glyoxyl derivative was produced using 48 h of immobilization time and high activation grade of the support. This derivative was approximately 260-fold more stable than the soluble enzyme and presented approximately 42% of the activity of the soluble enzyme for the hydrolysis of long-chain peptides (e.g., cheese whey proteins previously hydrolyzed with immobilized trypsin and chymotrypsin) and of the small substrate N-benzoylglycyl-l-phenylalanine (hippuryl-l-Phe). These results were much better than those achieved using the conventional support, glutaraldehyde-agarose. Amino acid analysis of the products of the acid hydrolysis of CPA (both soluble and immobilized) showed that approximately four lysine residues were linked on the glyoxyl agarose beads, suggesting the existence of an intense multipoint covalent attachment between the enzyme and the support. The maximum temperature of hydrolysis was increased from 50 degrees C (soluble enzyme) to 70 degrees C (most stable CPA-glyoxyl derivative). The most stable CPA-glyoxyl derivative could be efficiently used in the hydrolysis of long-chain peptides at high temperature (e.g., 60 degrees C), being able to release 2-fold more aromatic amino acids (Tyr, Phe, and Trp) than the soluble enzyme, under the same operational conditions. This new CPA derivative greatly increased the feasibility of using this protease in the production of protein hydrolysates that must be free of aromatic amino acids.     

Immobilization and stabilization of d-hydantoinase from Vigna angularis and its use in the production of N-carbamoyl-d-phenylglycine. Improvement of the reaction yield by allowing chemical racemization of the substrate

This work reports the immobilization of a multimeric d-hydantoinase (DHTase) from Vigna angularis (E.C. 3.5.2.2.) on agarose beads activated with glyoxyl groups aiming to improve its stability via multipoint covalent attachment. The final reduction with sodium borohydride resulted in a drop in enzyme activity that could be decreased by adding Zn²⁺ or Mg²⁺. The optimal preparation with high activity (58 % recovered activity) and stability (around 86-fold more stable than the free enzyme) was obtained by DHTase immobilization on glyoxyl agarose for 24 h at 25 °C and pH 10.05, and a borohydride reduction step in the presence of 10 mM Zn²⁺ (DHTase-Glx). The enzyme was almost fully immobilized on glyoxyl agarose (19.8 mg/g of support) when offering 20 mg/g. This immobilized biocatalyst was used to catalyze the hydrolysis of d,l-phenylhydantoin under substrate racemization conditions, which produced 99 % of N-carbamoyl-d-phenylglycine after 9 h reaction.     

Hydrolysis of fish oil by hyperactivated rhizomucor miehei lipase immobilized by multipoint anion exchange

Rhizomucor miehei lipase (RML) is greatly hyperactivated (around 20‐ to 25‐fold toward small substrates) in the presence of sucrose laurate. Hyperactivation appears to be an intramolecular process because it is very similar for soluble enzymes and covalently immobilized derivatives. The hyperactivated enzyme was immobilized (in the presence of sucrose laurate) on cyanogen bromide‐activated Sepharose (very mild covalent immobilization through the amino terminal residue), on glyoxyl Sepharose (intense multipoint covalent immobilization through the region with the highest amount of Lys residues), and on different anion exchangers (by multipoint anionic exchange through the region with the highest density of negative charges). Covalent immobilization does not promote the fixation of the hyperactivated enzyme, but immobilization on Sepharose Q retains the hyperactivated enzyme even in the absence of a detergent. The hydrolysis of fish oils by these hyperactivated enzyme derivatives was sevenfold faster than by covalently immobilized derivatives and three and a half times faster than by the enzyme hyperactivated on octyl‐Sepharose. The open structure of the hyperactivated lipase is fairly exposed to the medium, and no steric hindrance should interfere with the hydrolysis of large substrates. These new hyperactivated derivatives seem to be more suitable for hydrolysis of oils by RML immobilized inside porous supports. In addition, the hyperactivated derivatives are fairly stable against heat and organic cosolvents. © 2011 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Biotechnol. Prog., 2011