ABSTRACT
The exploitation of natural catalysts as whole cells or as purified enzymes is the essence of biotechnology, which was developed in an effort of obtaining industrial processes environmentally more friendly and economically convenient. Nevertheless, several industrial processes are denaturing for most “conventional” organisms and biocatalysts. This may explain why, from their discovery since the 1950s, organisms living under extreme environmental conditions, and the molecules extracted therein, appeared very promising tools for biotechnology. These expectations were motivated by the unusual, for human beings, physical conditions required by extremophiles for growth. As a consequence, bio-technologists can screen extremophiles for the most suitable biocatalyst to apply in a particular industrial field. In this chapter we
will describe some applications in biotechnology of extremozymes, pointing out that most of the applications described here are com-mon to both extremophilic Bacteria and Archaea. In particular, we will show in detail the potential advantages of mutated glycoside hydrolases from thermophilic organisms, in comparison with their mesophilic counterparts, as biotechnological tools in the oligosaccharide synthesis.
