Enzymes’ action on materials: Recent trends

Abstract

In the era of increasing usage of materials, there is a growing concern of environmental aspects. This has motivated many scientists to research on greener materials and technologies. In this line, several biodegradable materials and biomolecules-based technologies have been developed in the recent years. This has triggered vivacious participation of various biomolecules such as DNA, proteins, enzymes, and cells in the field of 'materials'. Among the various biomolecules, enzymes have gained a significant position due to their applications in numerous fields including nanoparticles synthesis, polymer degradation, enzymatic lithography, biosensing and bio-fuel cells. This mini-review accounts on recent trends in selective fields such as nanoparticles synthesis, enzymatic polymer degradation and enzymatic lithography.

Enzyme-Embedded Degradation of Poly(ε-caprolactone) using Lipase-Derived from Probiotic Lactobacillus plantarum

“…Enzymes from various sources such as fungi and bacteria have been shown to have great potential for polymer degradation. Several enzymes like amylases, proteases, and lipases are employed for polymer degradation because of their hydrolytic action on the functional groups such as glycosidic, amide, and ester, respectively. − Bacterial lipases are generally considered to be one of the important classes of enzymes that can easily be genetically modified and produced at a mass level. Also, they are promising over fungal lipases owing to their alkaline nature, thermal stability, and tolerance to organic solvents .…”

Enzymes catalysing the synthesis and degradation of beta-linked biopolymers and their applications

“…The patterning of polymeric and organic surfaces has been widely investigated for the fabrication of soft interfaces [116], and micro-contact printing (µCp) and scanning probe microscopy-based lithography have been used as the surface patterning methods. Recently, the development of enzyme-catalysed surface patterning has become one of the most important and attractive challenges for site-selective patterning with various surface morphologies [117,118]. Thus, we prepared biopolymer surfaces with different enzymatic degradability using simple surface modification by UV-ozone treatment/UV irradiation, followed by controlled enzymatic degradation, resulting in regular surface patterning [119].…”