Cowan, Don A., Stephanie G. Burton. EXTREMOPHILES AND THE FRONTIERS OF BIOTECHNOLOGY
Department of Biochemistry, University College London, Gower St., London WC1E 6BT, UK (don.cowan@ucl.ac.uk)
Extremophiles are organisms capable of living under conditions of chemical or physical stress - extremes of temperature, pH, solute concentration, radiation, pressure etc. Evolutionary adaptation to these extremes has generated a range of macromolecules which are highly resistant to chemical and physical degradation. The enzymes of extremophiles, particularly the thermophiles, have found widespread application in biotechnology, and are likely to lead the future industrial development of biotransformations - the use of enzymes to perform specific chemical conversions.
This presentation will review the diversity of extremophiles and their enzymology. The molecular basis of thermostability, and its consequences for activity and stability in organic solvents will be summarised. The means by which new extremophilic enzymes may be identified and applied to existing and novel biotransformations will be discussed in the context of recent studies on thermophilic nitrile-metabolising enzymes.