Marianne Thellersen

[19] Protein engineering of microbial lipases of industrial interest

Publisher Summary This chapter shows that protein engineering can be successfully used to produce new, commercially interesting products. An understanding of lipase function in general and under specific application conditions is mandatory to make the correct decisions in a protein-engineering strategy. Lipases have a number of potential industrial applications, such as production of esters and specialty fats, removal of resins from pulp, cleaning of hard surfaces, and use in detergents. Enzymes showing lipolytic activity can in some cases also act as esterases, phospholipases, cholesterolesterases, thioesterases, and cutinases. The specificities of lipases are broad, but each enzyme has a preference. The selectivity for a specific activity of the lipases can be improved by protein engineering. At present, most of the industrially relevant efforts in protein engineering of lipases have been to improve the hydrolytic efficiency, peracid generation, and detergent and protease stability, all aiming at applications for detergents.