Cold‐active microbial enzymes and their biotechnological applications

Abstract

Microorganisms known as psychrophiles/psychrotrophs, which survive in cold climates, constitute majority of the biosphere on Earth. Their capability to produce cold‐active enzymes along with other distinguishing characteristics allows them to survive in the cold environments. Due to the relative ease of large‐scale production compared to enzymes from plants and animals, commercial uses of microbial enzyme are alluring. The ocean depths, polar, and alpine regions, which make up over 85% of the planet, are inhabited to cold ecosystems. Microbes living in these regions are important for their metabolic contribution to the ecosphere as well as for their enzymes, which may have potential industrial applications. Cold‐adapted microorganisms are a possible source of cold‐active enzymes that have high catalytic efficacy at low and moderate temperatures at which homologous mesophilic enzymes are not active. Cold‐active enzymes can be used in a variety of biotechnological processes, including food processing, additives in the detergent and food industries, textile industry, waste‐water treatment, biopulping, environmental bioremediation in cold climates, biotransformation, and molecular biology applications with great potential for energy savings. Genetically manipulated strains that are suitable for producing a particular cold‐active enzyme would be crucial in a variety of industrial and biotechnological applications. The potential advantage of cold‐adapted enzymes will probably lead to a greater annual market than for thermo‐stable enzymes in the near future. This review includes latest updates on various microbial source of cold‐active enzymes and their biotechnological applications.

Burning question: Rethinking organohalide degradation strategy for bioremediation applications

“…As mentioned, bioremediation is generally time‐consuming and may not completely degrade organohalides. To address the gap between biological approaches and the need for sustainable and effective environmental remediation, biochemists have begun synthesizing functional enzymes to directly target pollutants, thereby overcoming the inherent inefficiencies associated with microbial processes (Kuddus et al., 2024 ). In particular, atomically dispersed single‐metal‐site materials have emerged as promising platforms to meet these demands, owing to their uniformity of isolated active sites and tunable coordination environments through the host structure (Baek et al., 2018 ).…”