Themed collection Biocatalysis & Bioprocessing

Great advances in tools and methodologies along the whole workflow are providing sustainable routes to a desired metabolite which can replace extractive manufacturing from endangered biological species or lengthy chemical routes from fossil-based starting materials.

Amines, and in particular chiral amines are essential building blocks for the manufacture of active pharmaceutical ingredients. Continuous flow syntheses using immobilized transaminases pave the way to green and intensified production processes.

An aldehyde dehydrogenase, catalyzing the oxidation of aldehydes under mild conditions, was immobilized on a 3D-printed reactor.

The biocatalytic synthesis of fumarate from CO₂ and pyruvate viaL-malate as an intermediate in an aqueous medium using a biocatalytic system consisting of malate dehydrogenase and fumarase in the presence of NADH is developed.

Automated high throughput workflow facilitating the rapid optimization and development of immobilized enzymes – ready to be scaled – and thus matching the need for speed in modern drug development.

Enzyme-decorated polymeric nanoparticles as both catalytic sites and stabilizers for a high catalytic activity and easily recyclable Pickering interface biocatalysis system.

Integration of Instant Procainamide (Instant-PC) flow chemistry into the N-GLYcanyzer PAT sequential injection system enables automated real-time monitoring of mAb N-glycosylation dynamics to facilitate advanced biologics manufacturing processes.

A new application of magnetic separation suitable for micron-scale solid–solid separation is designed and demonstrated on a pilot plant scale synthesis of amoxicillin trihydrate.

An unspecific peroxygenase from Aspergillus brasiliensis highly expressed in Pichia pastoris catalyses aromatic hydroxylation of a number of benzylic compounds.

Reference enzymes allow PET hydrolases and protein engineering approaches to be compared across different substrates, their properties and reaction conditions. Using this concept, semi-rational protein design led to an improved PET hydrolase variant.

A high-throughput screening platform uses peroxidase-mediated proximity labeling with fluorescent hydrogels. A yeast displayed enzyme variant library was screened using a reaction cascade. Enhancement of enzyme K_m is observed for displayed enzymes.

Biodegradable, waste-derived hydrogels containing immobilised peroxidase were successfully used for enzymatic removal of organic pollutants in water. Hydrogels are reusable and provide detoxification of the contaminants solution.

This study highlights the use of selective crystallization as a downstream-processing concept for amine products from biocatalytic reactions.

A one-pot combination of biocatalysis and organocatalysis converts aliphatic alcohols to dinitroalkanes in mild conditions at room temperature.

A new robust, active and selective biocatalyst, prepared by CaL-B entrapment into polyvinyl alcohol–chitosan nanofibers, proved to be efficient for the EKR of nine racemic phenothiazinyl-ethanols, important chiral building blocks.

An application of ML enhanced DOE has been demonstrated to capture the process nonlinearity more effectively. The proposed approach is applied for modelling and optimization of protein refolding, resulting in 3% improved prediction efficiency.

The authors describe an automated, data-rich screening and process development method for rapid discovery, development, and optimization of immobilized enzymes, critical to many biocatalytic processes.