ABSTRACT
Enzymes are increasingly used to perform a range of chemical
reactions. These catalysts from nature are sustainable, selective, and
efficient and offer a variety of benefits such as environmentally
friendly manufacturing processes, reduced use of solvents, lower
energy requirement, high atom efficiency, and reduced cost. How-
ever, natural biocatalysts are often not optimally suited for industrial
applications. To boost the use of enzymes in industrial processes,
it is important to expand the range of reactions catalyzed by
enzymes and to improve their properties for industrial applications.
Traditionally, in the past, new enzymes for desired reactions were
obtained by tedious and time-consuming screening of microbial
cultures, often following enrichment and isolation of new cultures.
Due to the genomics revolution, massive sequencing combined with
appropriate use of databases and efficient predictive bioinformatics
tools have the potential to replace the current laborious screening
approaches. The technological advances in the field offer an array
of tools, which nowadays still have to express their full applicative
potential. Actually, time-consuming, expensive, and investment-
intensive screening in the laboratory is expected to be replaced by
in silico screening using computer programs, ranking, design, and
automated DNA synthesis, thus allowing a much shorter time from
process idea to feasibility judgment with considerable savings on
research costs.
