Patrick Lorenz

Metagenomics and industrial applications

Different industries have different motivations to probe the enormous resource that is uncultivated microbial diversity. Currently, there is a global political drive to promote white (industrial) biotechnology as a central feature of the sustainable economic future of modern industrialized societies. This requires the development of novel enzymes, processes, products and applications. Metagenomics promises to provide new molecules with diverse functions, but ultimately, expression systems are required for any new enzymes and bioactive molecules to become an economic success. This review highlights industrial efforts and achievements in metagenomics.

Metagenome - a challenging source of enzyme discovery

Abstract Evolution over very long periods of time has generated a vast pool of physiologies and molecular adaptations to enable microorganisms to thrive in a wide range of living conditions. These solutions may be valuable tools in the rational design of technical processes. However, molecular ecological studies have proven that the vast majority of microorganisms cannot be cultivated in the laboratory and was therefore ignored when traditional screening procedures were applied to search for novel enzymes and bioactives. Cultivation-independent approaches now open up the roads to analyze and screen the genetically and metabolically rich microbial communities in their entirety. In these approaches DNA is directly isolated from environmental samples and cloned into suitable vectors to construct complex genomic libraries. These libraries can be analyzed for novel genes and pathways with sequence-based techniques or through screening proteins and drugs that are being produced in surrogate hosts. The approach of directly cloning environmental DNA greatly enhances the opportunities to take full advantage of the enormous naturally occurring microbial resources.

The Impact of Non-cultivated Biodiversity on Enzyme Discovery and Evolution

Abstract The search for novel enzymes with biotechnological potential in the fine chemical, food and feed, detergent and cosmetics industries is driven by the need to improve existing processes and applications, to design novel processes for innovative products or intermediates or to avoid intellectual property related operative restrictions. Strategies for obtaining novel biocatalysts will be based on screening natural biodiversity or a combination of nature derived scaffolds and optimization by directed evolution technology. Considering the enormous potential of in vitro mutational and recombinatorial strategies to alter genes and improve enzyme properties, we propose that it might be advantageous to select improved molecular starting points before embarking on the arduous walk through sequence space towards optimized performance