Enzymes on engineered supports: a strategy to obtain pharmaceutical compounds

Title : Enzymes on engineered supports: a strategy to obtain pharmaceutical compounds

Abstract:

The use of enzymes has contributed to obtention of enantiomerically pure compounds. However, for greater industrial viability, the enzyme immobilization technique is required. The design and production of each support for each enzyme can be obtained by support engineering and immobilization techniques. Depending on the support used in the enzyme immobilization process, the biocatalyst may exhibit particular activities. In this context, one material for supports that should be highlighted comprises core-shell polymer supports synthesized through combined suspension/emulsion polymerization. This technique can be very advantageous because it allows the production of porous particles on a micrometric scale and the functionalization of the shell of the particles. In this way, new polymeric core-shell particles produced through combined suspension and emulsion polymerization process were produced for the synthesis of high-performance enzymatic biocatalysts. Particularly, distinct comonomers, containing different functional compounds (such as glycidyl methacrylate, methyl methacrylate, styrene, and divinylbenzene), were added to the polymerization step in order to produce particles with distinct textural properties, including high specific area, porosity, and distinct hydrophobicity degree. Then, such core-shell particles were employed as supports for the immobilization of lipases. The performances of the obtained biocatalysts were investigated in hydrolysis reactions. Some strategies to improve the enzyme properties during the performance of tailor-made enzyme immobilization protocols was made. It was observed that immobilized enzymes may also exhibit better functional properties than the corresponding soluble enzymes by simple immobilization protocols. Besides, the biochemical characterization of new biocatalysts showed new performance if compared with its soluble enzyme version. The potential for industrial applications to obtain pharmacological derivatives was explored.

Audience take-away:

• This work will help more understanding about immobilization of proteins for synthesis of active compounds
• The audience will contribute to expand biochemical concepts in catalysis area.
• The information can simplify researcher´s job more efficient.

Biography:

Evelin Andrade Manoel is a Biologist and holds a PhD in the area of Biochemical Engineering. She was awarded by the Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES), being considered the best thesis in the country in the area of Engineering (2015) and works as a permanent professor at the Faculty of Pharmacy at UFRJ. She has experience in the areas of Biochemical and Biochemical Engineering with an emphasis on Biotechnology applied to Pharmaceuticals and Cosmetics. Recently she had a patent filing for the production of a new drug (Process number: BR1020210224649).