How will enzymes behave in ionic liquids?

Oeiras, 13.10.2014

Researchers from the Lab of Molecular Thermodynamics and the Lab of Protein Folding and Stability have published a paper in Green Chemistry where they describe an expedite strategy to select the best ionic liquids for enzyme biotechnology.

Ionic liquids have been regarded as greener substitutes of organic solvents in enzyme-based biotechnological processes. The properties of these solvents allow applications of ionic liquids to increase the stability and selectivity of enzymes, as refolding and crystallization additives, and as inhibitors of protein aggregation. But not all ionic liquids are alike and predicting how a particular enzyme will behave in an ionic liquid is still not possible. In this work, researchers aim at having contributed to a much easier and rational choice of the best ionic liquid.

Since it is possible to design an immense number of ionic liquids, optimizing a biotechnological process using these solvents may become a time-consuming task. In this work, researchers tested the behaviour of lipase in 61 different ionic liquids using a microplate system and assessed both the enzyme function and its structure, through three different parameters. Besides creating a new screening strategy, researchers believe that establishing structure-function relationships for proteins in ionic liquids will help to predict the protein’s behaviour and to create better solvents for biotechnology.

This work is a collaboration between researchers from ITQB and the University of Vigo (Spain).

Original Article

Green Chem. (2014) 16, 4520-4523 - DOI: 10.1039/c4gc01329h

Structural–functional evaluation of ionic liquid libraries for the design of co-solvents in lipase-catalysed reactions

João V. Rodrigues^‡a, Diana Ruivo^‡a, Ana Rodríguez^b, Francisco J. Deive^b, José M. S. S. Esperança^a, Isabel M. Marrucho^*a, Cláudio M. Gomes^*a and Luís Paulo N. Rebelo^a

‡ - Equally contributing authors
* - Corresponding authors
a - Instituto de Tecnologia Química e Biológica
b- Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Vigo