The chemical industry is going biological: the use of biocatalysts, called enzymes, allows many products to be prepared very efficiently, economically, and in an environmentally safe manner.
For a specific reaction, however, finding the right enzyme among the countless natural enzymes is like finding a needle in a haystack. British researchers have now developed a screening method that could allow such a search to be tackled systematically, relatively rapidly, and simply.
Most reactions that chemists would like to carry out in their reactors do not occur in nature. It is thus understandable that nature does not as a rule simply have a suitable enzyme available. However, sometimes one can be found that, in addition to its intended task, will also catalyze the desired reaction – even if with only low activity. Many enzymes also convert compounds that resemble their natural substrate (substrate ambiguity), while others even catalyze different types of reactions (catalyst promiscuity). An enzyme that demonstrates a certain activity for the desired reaction can often be sufficiently optimized by targeted mutations to become useful for production.