Effect of internal diffusional restrictions on the selectivity of α-chymotrypsin in a series-parallel reaction of peptide synthesis

Immobilization of Lipase B from Candida antarctica in Octyl-Vinyl Sulfone Agarose: Effect of the Enzyme-Support Interactions on Enzyme Activity, Specificity, Structure and Inactivation Pathway

Lipase B from Candida antarctica was immobilized on heterofunctional support octyl agarose activated with vinyl sulfone to prevent enzyme release under drastic conditions. Covalent attachment was established, but the blocking step using hexylamine, ethylenediamine or the amino acids glycine (Gly) and aspartic acid (Asp) altered the results. The activities were lower than those observed using the octyl biocatalyst, except when using ethylenediamine as blocking reagent and p-nitrophenol butyrate (pNPB) as substrate. The enzyme stability increased using these new biocatalysts at pH 7 and 9 using all blocking agents (much more significantly at pH 9), while it decreased at pH 5 except when using Gly as blocking agent. The stress inactivation of the biocatalysts decreased the enzyme activity versus three different substrates (pNPB, S-methyl mandelate and triacetin) in a relatively similar fashion. The tryptophane (Trp) fluorescence spectra were different for the biocatalysts, suggesting different enzyme conformations. However, the fluorescence spectra changes during the inactivation were not too different except for the biocatalyst blocked with Asp, suggesting that, except for this biocatalyst, the inactivation pathways may not be so different.

Deciphering the Effect of Microbead Size Distribution on the Kinetics of Heterogeneous Biocatalysts through Single-Particle Analysis Based on Fluorescence Microscopy

Understanding the functionality of immobilized enzymes with spatiotemporal resolution and under operando conditions is an unmet need in applied biocatalysis, as well as priceless information to guide the optimization of heterogeneous biocatalysts for industrial purposes. Unfortunately, enzyme immobilization still relies on trial-and-error approximations that prevail over rational designs. Hence, a modern fabrication process to achieve efficient and robust heterogeneous biocatalysts demands comprehensive characterization techniques to track and understand the immobilization process at the protein–material interface. Recently, our group has developed a new generation of self-sufficient heterogeneous biocatalysts based on alcohol dehydrogenases co-immobilized with nicotinamide cofactors on agarose porous microbeads. Harnessing the autofluorescence of NAD+(P)H and using time-lapse fluorescence microscopy, enzyme activity toward the redox cofactors can be monitored inside the beads. To analyze these data, herein we present an image analytical tool to quantify the apparent Michaelis–Menten parameters of alcohol dehydrogenases co-immobilized with NAD(P)+/H at the single-particle level. Using this tool, we found a strong negative correlation between the apparent catalytic performance of the immobilized enzymes and the bead radius when using exogenous bulky substrates in reduction reactions. Therefore, applying image analytics routines to microscopy studies, we can directly unravel the functional heterogeneity of different heterogeneous biocatalyst samples tested under different reaction conditions.