Application of agriculture waste as a support for lipase immobilization

Research in the Field of Drug Design and Development

The processes used by academic and industrial scientists to discover new drugs have recently experienced a true renaissance, with many new and exciting techniques being developed over the past 5-10 years alone. Drug design and discovery, and the search for new safe and well-tolerated compounds, as well as the ineffectiveness of existing therapies, and society's insufficient knowledge concerning the prophylactics and pharmacotherapy of the most common diseases today, comprise a serious challenge. This can influence not only the quality of human life, but also the health of whole societies, which became evident during the COVID-19 pandemic. In general, the process of drug development consists of three main stages: drug discovery, preclinical development using cell-based and animal models/tests, clinical trials on humans and, finally, forward moving toward the step of obtaining regulatory approval, in order to market the potential drug. In this review, we will attempt to outline the first three most important consecutive phases in drug design and development, based on the experience of three cooperating and complementary academic centers of the Visegrád group; i.e., Medical University of Lublin, Poland, Masaryk University of Brno, Czech Republic, and Comenius University Bratislava, Slovak Republic.

Renewable, sustainable, and natural lignocellulosic carriers for lipase immobilization: A review

It is well-known that enzymes are molecules particularly susceptible to pH and temperature variations. Immobilization techniques may overcome this weakness besides improving the reusability of the biocatalysts. Given the strong push toward a circular economy, the use of natural lignocellulosic wastes as supports for enzyme immobilization has been increasingly attractive in recent years. This fact is mainly due to their high availability, low costs, and the possibility of reducing the environmental impact that can occur when they are improperly stored. In addition, they have physical and chemical characteristics suitable for enzyme immobilization (large surface area, high rigidity, porosity, reactive functional groups, etc.). This review aims to guide readers and provide them with the tools necessary to select the most suitable methodology for lipase immobilization on lignocellulosic wastes. The importance and the characteristics of an increasingly interesting enzyme, such as lipase, and the advantages and disadvantages of the different immobilization methods will be discussed. The various kinds of lignocellulosic wastes and the processing required to make them suitable as carriers will be also reported.

Digging and identification of novel microorganisms from the soil environments with high methanol-tolerant lipase production for biodiesel preparation

Converting renewable biomass into carbon-neutral biofuels is one of the most effective strategies to achieve zero carbon emissions and contribute to environmental protection. Microorganisms from the soil were primarily screened on the rhodamine B-plate for highly-active lipase producing strains and re-screened on a tributyrin-methanol plate using crude lipases produced from the initially screened-out strains. The lipase-producing strains with higher methanol-tolerant lipase were identified based on morphological characteristics and 16S rDNA sequencing. The crude lipases with much higher methanol-tolerance from screened top-4 strains, Stenotrophomonas maltophilia D18, Lysinibacillus fusiformis B23, Acinetobacter junii C69, and A. pittii C95 showed temperature optima of 25 °C, 35 °C, 30 °C, and 30 °C at pH 7.0, respectively, while their pH optima were 8.0, 7.0, 7.5, and 7.5 at each optimum temperature, respectively. After 24-h incubation, they retained more than 85% of their original activities in 25%, 15%, 20%, and 20% of methanol, respectively. They catalyzed the conversion of soybean oil into biodiesel by yields of 63.1%, 35.4%, 74.6%, and 78.5% after 24-h reactions, respectively. In conclusion, the as-isolated microorganisms producing high methanol-tolerant lipase are considered promising to provide robust biocatalyst for efficient biodiesel preparation and other industrial applications.

Sources, purification, immobilization and industrial applications of microbial lipases: An overview

Microbial lipase is looking for better attention with the fast growth of enzyme proficiency and other benefits like easy, cost-effective, and reliable manufacturing. Immobilized enzymes can be used repetitively and are incapable to catalyze the reactions in the system continuously. Hydrophobic supports are utilized to immobilize enzymes when the ionic strength is low. This approach allows for the immobilization, purification, stability, and hyperactivation of lipases in a single step. The diffusion of the substrate is more advantageous on hydrophobic supports than on hydrophilic supports in the carrier. These approaches are critical to the immobilization performance of the enzyme. For enzyme immobilization, synthesis provides a higher pH value as well as greater heat stability. Using a mixture of immobilization methods, the binding force between enzymes and the support rises, reducing enzyme leakage. Lipase adsorption produces interfacial activation when it is immobilized on hydrophobic support. As a result, in the immobilization process, this procedure is primarily used for a variety of industrial applications. Microbial sources, immobilization techniques, and industrial applications in the fields of food, flavor, detergent, paper and pulp, pharmaceuticals, biodiesel, derivatives of esters and amino groups, agrochemicals, biosensor applications, cosmetics, perfumery, and bioremediation are all discussed in this review.

Waste Management in the Agri-Food Industry: The Conversion of Eggshells, Spent Coffee Grounds, and Brown Onion Skins into Carriers for Lipase Immobilization

One of the major challenges in sustainable waste management in the agri-food industry following the “zero waste” model is the application of the circular economy strategy, including the development of innovative waste utilization techniques. The conversion of agri-food waste into carriers for the immobilization of enzymes is one such technique. Replacing chemical catalysts with immobilized enzymes (i.e., immobilized/heterogeneous biocatalysts) could help reduce the energy efficiency and environmental sustainability problems of existing chemically catalysed processes. On the other hand, the economics of the process strongly depend on the price of the immobilized enzyme. The conversion of agricultural and food wastes into low-cost enzyme carriers could lead to the development of immobilized enzymes with desirable operating characteristics and subsequently lower the price of immobilized enzymes for use in biocatalytic production. In this context, this review provides insight into the possibilities of reusing food industry wastes, namely, eggshells, coffee grounds, and brown onion skins, as carriers for lipase immobilization.

Eggshell membrane as feedstock in enzyme immobilization

Eggshell membrane, an eco-compatible, safe and cheap by-product was employed as carrier for the laccase from Trametes versicolor immobilization. In order to evaluate the best protocol to apply for the syringic acid degradation, two different types of laccase loading on eggshell membrane were used by incubation in solution or by enzyme-dropping. Chemicals (covalent) and physicals (adsorption) immobilizations were tested for both procedure using native or periodate-oxidized laccase. It is shown that immobilization of periodate-oxidized laccase on NiCl₂-pretreated eggshell membrane was the best method for the first procedure (immobilized activity 1300 U/Kg, a residual activity of 30 % for 6 reuse). For the enzyme-dropping protocol a covalent method with the bifunctional cross linker (glutaraldehyde) was the best method (immobilized activity 3500 U/Kg, a residual activity of 45 % for 6 reuse).

Environmental impact of lignocellulosic wastes and their effective exploitation as smart carriers - A drive towards greener and eco-friendlier biocatalytic systems

In recent years, lignocellulosic wastes have gathered much attention due to increasing economic, social, environmental apprehensions, global climate change and depleted fossil fuel reserves. The unsuitable management of lignocellulosic materials and related organic wastes poses serious environmental burden and causes pollution. On the other hand, lignocellulosic wastes hold significant economic potential and can be employed as promising catalytic supports because of impressing traits such as surface area, porous structure, and occurrence of many chemical moieties (i.e., carboxyl, amino, thiol, hydroxyl, and phosphate groups). In the current literature, scarce information is available on this important and highly valuable aspect of lignocellulosic wastes as smart carriers for immobilization. Thus, to fulfill this literature gap, herein, an effort has been made to signify the value generation aspects of lignocellulosic wastes. Literature assessment spotlighted that all these waste materials display high potential for immobilizing enzyme because of their low cost, bio-renewable, and sustainable nature. Enzyme immobilization has gained recognition as a highly useful technology to improve enzyme properties such as catalytic stability, performance, and repeatability. The application of carrier-supported biocatalysts has been a theme of considerable research, for the past three decades, in the bio-catalysis field. Nonetheless, the type of support matrix plays a key role in the immobilization process due to its influential impact on the physicochemical characteristics of the as-synthesized biocatalytic system. In the past, an array of various organic, inorganic, and composite materials has been used as carriers to formulate efficient and stable biocatalysts. This review is envisioned to provide recent progress and development on the use of different agricultural wastes (such as coconut fiber, sugarcane bagasse, corn and rice wastes, and Brewers' spent grain) as support materials for enzyme immobilization. In summary, the effective utilization of lignocellulosic wastes to develop multi-functional biocatalysts is not only economical but also reduce environmental problems of unsuitable management of organic wastes and drive up the application of biocatalytic technology in the industry.

Recent Trends in Biomaterials for Immobilization of Lipases for Application in Non-Conventional Media

The utilization of biomaterials as novel carrier materials for lipase immobilization has been investigated by many research groups over recent years. Biomaterials such as agarose, starch, chitin, chitosan, cellulose, and their derivatives have been extensively studied since they are non-toxic materials, can be obtained from a wide range of sources and are easy to modify, due to the high variety of functional groups on their surfaces. However, although many lipases have been immobilized on biomaterials and have shown potential for application in biocatalysis, special features are required when the biocatalyst is used in non-conventional media, for example, in organic solvents, which are required for most reactions in organic synthesis. In this article, we discuss the use of biomaterials for lipase immobilization, highlighting recent developments in the synthesis and functionalization of biomaterials using different methods. Examples of effective strategies designed to result in improved activity and stability and drawbacks of the different immobilization protocols are discussed. Furthermore, the versatility of different biocatalysts for the production of compounds of interest in organic synthesis is also described.

Agro-industrial wastes as potential carriers for enzyme immobilization: A review

This review provides a general overview of the suitability of different agro-industrial wastes for enzyme immobilization. For the purposes of this literary study, the support materials are divided into two main groups, called lignocellulosic (coconut fiber, corn cob, spent grain, spent coffee, husk, husk ash, and straw rice, soybean and wheat bran) and not lignocellulosic by-products (eggshell and eggshell membranes). The study pointed out that all of these wastes are materials of great potentiality for enzyme immobilization even if coconut fiber is preferred. This result is of significant interest due to the low cost and great availability of such wastes, which actually are underused and cause significant environmental problems for improper storage. In addition, the development of economic biocatalysts more sustainable, besides reduce environmental impacts, improve the application of enzymatic technology in industry. Therefore, the enzyme immobilization reaction and the application of biocatalysts are reviewed and discussed.

Recent advances on pollutants removal by rice husk as a bio-based adsorbent: A critical review

Rice husk is an attractive bio-based adsorbent material for pollutant removal since it is one of the low-cost and renewable resources. The objective of this review is to give a summary of the key scientific features related to pollutants removal using rice husk, with a specific emphasis on the effect of factors on adsorption capacity of rice husk. According to the results, rice husk has the removal potential of various pollutants and it can be more used in the wastewater treatment. On the other hand, untreated bio-based adsorbent in large-scale application can usually cause some difficulties and selection of appropriate pretreatment method for rice husk is also one of the major challenges. Therefore, this review studies different pretreatment methods as well as regeneration of adsorbent and the fate of adsorbed contaminants. According to the literature, pretreatment methods increase the rice husk capability and adsorption capacity and the chemical treatments have been more used than thermal treatments. Also, regeneration of rice husk adsorbent and adsorbed contaminants is applicable. Finally, examples of some applications and possibility of biocatalyst immobilization on the rice husk as a promising approach are presented. Results confirmed that rice husk has an excellent prospective potential for biocatalysts immobilization.

Cost analysis of oil cake-to-biodiesel production in packed-bed micro-flow reactors with immobilized lipases

Biodiesel production depends to a great extent on the use of cheap raw materials, since biodiesel itself is a mass product, not a high-value product. New processing methods, such as micro-flow continuous processing combined with enzymatic catalysis, open doors to the latter. As reported here, the window of opportunity in enzyme-catalyzed biodiesel production is the conversion of waste cooking oil. The main technological challenge for this is to obtain efficient immobilization of the lipase catalyst on beads. The beads can be filled into tubular reactors where designed packed-bed provide porous channels, forming micro-flow. It turns out, that in this way, the immobilization costs become the decisive economic factor. This paper reports a solution to that issue. The use of oil cake enables economic viability, which is not given by any of the commercial polymeric substrates used so far for enzyme immobilization. The costs of immobilization are mirrored in the earnings and cash flow of the new biotechnological process.

Immobilization of Trypsin in Lignocellulosic Waste Material to Produce Peptides with Bioactive Potential from Whey Protein

In this study, trypsin (Enzyme Comission 3.4.21.4) was immobilized in a low cost, lignocellulosic support (corn cob powder—CCP) with the goal of obtaining peptides with bioactive potential from cheese whey. The pretreated support was activated with glyoxyl groups, glutaraldehyde and IDA-glyoxyl. The immobilization yields of the derivatives were higher than 83%, and the retention of catalytic activity was higher than 74%. The trypsin-glyoxyl-CCP derivative was thermally stable at 65 °C, a value that was 1090-fold higher than that obtained with the free enzyme. The trypsin-IDA-glyoxyl-CCP and trypsin-glutaraldehyde-CCP derivatives had thermal stabilities that were 883- and five-fold higher, respectively, then those obtained with the free enzyme. In the batch experiments, trypsin-IDA-glyoxyl-CCP retained 91% of its activity and had a degree of hydrolysis of 12.49%, while the values for trypsin-glyoxyl-CCP were 87% and 15.46%, respectively. The stabilized derivative trypsin-glyoxyl-CCP was also tested in an upflow packed-bed reactor. The hydrodynamic characterization of this reactor was a plug flow pattern, and the kinetics of this system provided a relative activity of 3.04 ± 0.01 U·g⁻¹ and an average degree of hydrolysis of 23%, which were suitable for the production of potentially bioactive peptides.