Open Access

Many industrial processes are performed using harmful chemicals. The current technical synthesis of N-acyl-amino acids relies on acyl chlorides, which are typically obtained from phosgene chemistry. A greener alternative is the application of whole cells or enzymes to carry out synthesis in an environmentally friendly manner. Aminoacylases belong to the hydrolase family and the resolution of racemic mixtures of N-acetyl-amino acids is a well-known industrial process. Several new enzymes accepting long-chain fatty acids as substrates were discovered in recent years. This article reviews the synthetic potential of aminoacylases to produce biobased N-acyl-amino acid surfactants. The focus lays on a survey of the different types of aminoacylases available for synthesis and their reaction products. The enzymes are categorized according to their protein family classification and their biochemical characteristics including substrate spectra, reaction optima and process stability, both in hydrolysis and under process conditions suitable for synthesis. Finally, the benefits and future challenges of enzymatic N-acyl-amino acid synthesis with aminoacylases will be discussed.

Chiral, vicinal diols are of high interest for academic research and industrial applications. For synthesizing chiral diols, enzymes are important catalysts due to their high selectivity and ability to work under tolerable temperature and no pressure. In this study, two consecutive enzyme-catalyzed steps were used for the asymmetric synthesis of aliphatic, vicinal diols with high product concentrations and chiral purity. The reaction comprised a ligation step employing lyases and a subsequent reduction step using oxidoreductases. Either in an aqueous buffer or an organic solvent, the potentially biobased aldehydes acetaldehyde, propanal, butanal, and pentanal were used as substrates. Here, all possible stereoisomers of 2,3-butanediol, 3,4-hexanediol, 4,5-octanediol, and 5,6-decanediol were produced with isomeric content values between 72% and > 99%, and concentrations and conversions between 4.1 and 60 mM. This work shows how four symmetric, chiral, vicinal diols can be synthesized by combining enzymes in a modular way, including exemplarily scaling.

Die Erfindung liegt auf dem Gebiet der Enzymtechnologie. Die Erfindung betrifft Proteasen aus Metabacillus indicus, die insbesondere im Hinblick auf den Einsatz in Wasch- und Reinigungsmitteln verwendet werden können, alle hinreichend ähnlichen Proteasen mit einer entsprechend ähnlichen Sequenz zu SEQ ID NO:1 und für sie codierende Nukleinsäuren. Die Erfindung betrifft ferner deren Herstellung sowie Verfahren zur Verwendung dieser Proteasen, deren Verwendung als solche sowie diese enthaltende Mittel, insbesondere Wasch- und Reinigungsmittel.

A large strain collection comprising antagonistic bacteria was screened for novel detergent proteases. Several strains displayed protease activity on agar plates containing skim milk but were inactive in liquid media. Encapsulation of cells in alginate beads induced protease production. Stenotrophomonas maltophilia emerged as best performer under washing conditions. For identification of wash-active proteases, four extracellular serine proteases called StmPr1, StmPr2, StmPr3 and StmPr4 were cloned. StmPr2 and StmPr4 were sufficiently overexpressed in E. coli. Expression of StmPr1 and StmPr3 resulted in unprocessed, insoluble protein. Truncation of most of the C-terminal domain which has been identified by enzyme modeling succeeded in expression of soluble, active StmPr1 but failed in case of StmPr3. From laundry application tests StmPr2 turned out to be a highly wash-active protease at 45 °C. Specific activity of StmPr2 determined with suc-l-Ala-l-Ala-l-Pro-l-Phe-p-nitroanilide as the substrate was 17 ± 2 U/mg. In addition we determined the kinetic parameters and cleavage preferences of protease StmPr2.