Enzyme encapsulation in nanostructured self-assembled structures: Toward biofunctional supramolecular assemblies

Enzymes have come into use for many new applications outside their natural biological environment, taking advantage of their high efficiency and selectivity as biocatalysts. Such new application often requires encapsulation to preserve the structure and activity of the enzyme, but also to regulate and control the activity. Here, we will discuss two types of encapsulation, soft matrices consisting of polar lipid liquid crystals and hard ordered mesoporous silica matrices. For both types of matrices, the challenge is to control the pore size of the matrices and the interaction with the matrix interface. Here, the polar lipid liquid crystals offer larger flexibility than silica, but on the other hand, it is considerably more sensitive to the environment.