Irreversible high pressure inactivation of beta-galactosidase from Kluyveromyces lactis: comparison with thermal inactivation

Enzyme reactor design under thermal inactivation

Temperature is a very relevant variable for any bioprocess. Temperature optimization of bioreactor operation is a key aspect for process economics. This is especially true for enzyme-catalyzed processes, because enzymes are complex, unstable catalysts whose technological potential relies on their operational stability. Enzyme reactor design is presented with a special emphasis on the effect of thermal inactivation. Enzyme thermal inactivation is a very complex process from a mechanistic point of view. However, for the purpose of enzyme reactor design, it has been oversimplified frequently, considering one-stage first-order kinetics of inactivation and data gathered under nonreactive conditions that poorly represent the actual conditions within the reactor. More complex mechanisms are frequent, especially in the case of immobilized enzymes, and most important is the effect of catalytic modulators (substrates and products) on enzyme stability under operation conditions. This review focuses primarily on reactor design and operation under modulated thermal inactivation. It also presents a scheme for bioreactor temperature optimization, based on validated temperature-explicit functions for all the kinetic and inactivation parameters involved. More conventional enzyme reactor design is presented merely as a background for the purpose of highlighting the need for a deeper insight into enzyme inactivation for proper bioreactor design.

Effects of temperature and pressure on Rhizomucor miehei lipase stability

Both high temperature and high hydrostatic pressure induce irreversible deactivation of enzymes. They enable the enzyme's thermodynamic parameters to be determined and are used to study the mechanisms involved in biochemical systems. The effect of these two factors on the stability of Rhizomucor miehei lipase have been investigated. The stability criterion used was residual hydrolytic activity of the lipase. Experimental and theoretical parameters, obtained by linear regression analysis, were compared with theoretical kinetics in order to validate the series-type inactivation model. The lipase of R. miehei was deactivated by either thermal or pressure treatment. Moreover conformational studies made by fluorescence spectroscopy suggest that the conformational changes induced by pressure were different from those induced by temperature. In addition they show that after thermal deactivation there were less intermolecular hydrogen bonded structures formed than was the case for deactivation by high pressure.