Helping proteins come in from the cold: 5 burning questions about cold-active enzymes

TY - JOUR

T1 - Helping proteins come in from the cold

T2 - 5 burning questions about cold-active enzymes

AU - Nowak, Jan Stanislaw

AU - Otzen, Daniel E

N1 - © 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.

PY - 2024

Y1 - 2024

N2 - Enzymes from psychrophilic (cold-loving) organisms have attracted considerable interest over the past decades for their potential in various low-temperature industrial processes. However, we still lack large-scale commercialization of their activities. Here, we review their properties, limitations and potential. Our review is structured around answers to 5 central questions: 1. How do cold-active enzymes achieve high catalytic rates at low temperatures? 2. How is protein flexibility connected to cold-activity? 3. What are the sequence-based and structural determinants for cold-activity? 4. How does the thermodynamic stability of psychrophilic enzymes reflect their cold-active capabilities? 5. How do we effectively identify novel cold-active enzymes, and can we apply them in an industrial context? We conclude that emerging screening technologies combined with big-data handling and analysis make it reasonable to expect a bright future for our understanding and exploitation of cold-active enzymes.

AB - Enzymes from psychrophilic (cold-loving) organisms have attracted considerable interest over the past decades for their potential in various low-temperature industrial processes. However, we still lack large-scale commercialization of their activities. Here, we review their properties, limitations and potential. Our review is structured around answers to 5 central questions: 1. How do cold-active enzymes achieve high catalytic rates at low temperatures? 2. How is protein flexibility connected to cold-activity? 3. What are the sequence-based and structural determinants for cold-activity? 4. How does the thermodynamic stability of psychrophilic enzymes reflect their cold-active capabilities? 5. How do we effectively identify novel cold-active enzymes, and can we apply them in an industrial context? We conclude that emerging screening technologies combined with big-data handling and analysis make it reasonable to expect a bright future for our understanding and exploitation of cold-active enzymes.

KW - Bioprospecting

KW - Enzyme catalysis

KW - Protein dynamics

KW - Psychrophilicity

KW - Thermodynamic stability

U2 - 10.1016/j.bbadva.2023.100104

DO - 10.1016/j.bbadva.2023.100104

M3 - Review

C2 - 38162634

SN - 2667-1603

VL - 5

JO - BBA advances

JF - BBA advances

M1 - 100104

ER -