As a highly efficient biocatalyst, enzymes can accelerate biochemical reactions in living organisms. They can also be extracted from cells and then used in a wide range of commercially important catalytic processes. For example, they play an important role in the production of sweeteners and in the modification of antibiotics, which are used in laundry detergents and various cleaning products, and it plays a key role in analytical devices and assays for clinical, forensic and environmental applications. Biocatalysts (enzymes and cells) are used in a variety of ways in different fields.
In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, significant progress was made in the extraction, characterization and commercial development of many enzymes, but it was not until the 1920s that enzymes crystallized, revealing that catalytic activity is related to protein molecules. In the next 60 years, it was thought that all enzymes were proteins, but in the 1980s, some ribonucleic acid (RNA) molecules were also found to play a catalytic role. These RNAs, called ribozymes, play an important role in gene expression. In the same decade, biochemists have also developed techniques for generating antibodies with catalytic properties. These so-called "
enzymes for antibody" have significant potential as novel industrial catalysts and therapeutic agents.
Enzymes used for diagnostics
Enzymes are used for this purpose, and this enzyme is called “enzymes for diagnostics”, and some innate metabolic errors occur due to the lack of enzymes, in which specific genes are introduced to encode specific deletion enzymes. However, in most cases, certain diseases are treated by administering appropriate enzymes. For example, the lack of enzymes to synthesize an excess of aldosterone (androgen) leads to masculinization in female infants and precocious puberty in men aged 5-7 years. Similarly, leukemia (a disease in which leukemia cells require exogenous asparagine growth) can be treated by administering a bacterially derived asparaginase.
Industrial applications
Industrial enzymes are used in industry in different ways.
In the dairy use
Calf chymosin has long been used in the dairy industry. In recent years, calf chymosin has been replaced by microbial chymosin (e.g., Mucor michei). They are acidic aspartic proteases. They are slightly different from calf chymosin because they depend on the reaction of casein with Ca++, temperature, pH, and the like. Lactase (produced by Bacillus stearothermophilus) is used to hydrolyze lactose in whey or milk, which is used for the aroma enhancement in special cheeses. And those are enzymes for daily use.
In the detergent industry
In the process of clearing clothing, protein soils often precipitate on solid fabrics, which help to adhere dirt to the textile fibers and form stains on the fabric. These stains are difficult to remove from the clothes. However, it can be easily removed by adding a proteolytic enzyme to the detergent. It attacks the peptide bond and thus dissolves the protein. The alkaline serine protease obtained from Bacillus licheniformis is most widely used in detergents. In addition, a serine protease of B. amyloliquefaciens is also used for this purpose. It contains alpha-amylase and thus it may be advantageous to some extent.
A writer lives in New York.