Enzymes and Bioconversions of Industrial, Pharmaceutical, and Biotechnological Significance

Enzymes are an important part of industry due to their many favorable properties. The development of industrial enzymes has depended heavily on the use of microbial sources. Microbes are useful because they can be produced economically in short fermentations and inexpensive media. Screening is simple, and strain improvement for increased production has been very successful. In the 1980s and 1990s, microbial enzymes replaced many plant and animal enzymes. They have found use in many industries including food, detergents, textiles, leather, pulp and paper, diagnostics, and therapy. The development of recombinant DNA technology had a major effect on production levels of enzymes as their genes were transferred from native species into industrial strains. Over 50% of the enzyme market is provided by recombinant enzymes. In many cases, enzymes have also been used to carry out conversions that were synthetic in previous years. Accompanying this trend is the use of whole cells to carry out bioconversions. Bioconversions have become very important to industry especially because of the demand for single isomer intermediates.