Henryk M Kalisz*
Abstract
Enzymes are biological catalysts that catalyse highly specific chemical reactions in all living organisms. Enzymes have evolved over millions of years to carry out the very specific chemical reactions of life. Some of the oldest chemical reactions known to man, such as the production of vinegar, cheese, beer and wine, employ enzymes. However, up to the 1990s the availability of suitable enzymes for industrial applications was very limited. Natural enzymes were mostly unstable in industrial conditions and frequently gave low yields. Consequently, most applications were initially restricted to simple hydrolases for esterification or hydrolysis, principally in laundry detergents and leather manufacture. The exploitation of recombinant gene technologies, such as random mutagenesis, site directed mutagenesis, rational design, DNA shuffling, directed evolution, has since enabled the commercialization of enzymes that could previously not be implemented in industrial processes. Nowadays, enzymes play an important role in a variety of industries, including household care, food and beverages, animal health and nutrition, textiles, pulp and paper, personal care and cosmetics, agriculture, fine chemicals, diagnostics and pharmaceuticals[1,2]. Due to their high chemo-, enantio- and regioselectivity, resulting in higher yields of a required enantiomer, enzymes are increasingly used in the fine chemicals and pharmaceutical industries, particularly in the synthesis of chiral pharmaceutical intermediates for the production of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs)[3].