Enzyme activity in liquid lipase melts as a step towards solvent-free biology at 150 °C

Nat Commun. 2014 Oct 6:5:5058. doi: 10.1038/ncomms6058.

Abstract

Water molecules play a number of critical roles in enzyme catalysis, including mass transfer of substrates and products, nucleophilicity and proton transfer at the active site, and solvent shell-mediated dynamics for accessing catalytically competent conformations. The pervasiveness of water in enzymolysis therefore raises the question concerning whether biocatalysis can be undertaken in the absence of a protein hydration shell. Lipase-mediated catalysis has been undertaken with reagent-based solvents and lyophilized powders, but there are no examples of molecularly dispersed enzymes that catalyse reactions at sub-solvation levels within solvent-free melts. Here we describe the synthesis, properties and enzyme activity of self-contained reactive biofluids based on solvent-free melts of lipase-polymer surfactant nanoconjugates. Desiccated substrates in liquid (p-nitrophenyl butyrate) or solid (p-nitrophenyl palmitate) form can be mixed or solubilized, respectively, into the enzyme biofluids, and hydrolysed in the solvent-free state. Significantly, the efficiency of product formation increases as the temperature is raised to 150 °C.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Butyrates / chemistry
  • Catalysis
  • Esterases / chemistry
  • Freeze Drying
  • Hydrolysis
  • Lipase / chemistry*
  • Palmitates / chemistry
  • Protein Structure, Secondary
  • Solvents / chemistry
  • Spectrophotometry, Ultraviolet
  • Temperature
  • Thermodynamics
  • Water / chemistry

Substances

  • Butyrates
  • Palmitates
  • Solvents
  • Water
  • 4-nitrophenyl palmitate
  • 4-nitrophenyl butyrate
  • Esterases
  • Lipase