Arnold F H
Division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena 91125.
Trends Biotechnol. 1990 Sep;8(9):244-9. doi: 10.1016/0167-7799(90)90186-2.
Enzymes may be redesigned to permit catalysis in non-aqueous solvents by engineering their amino acid sequences, thereby altering their physical and chemical properties to suit the new solvent environment. The interactions that contribute to protein stability in non-aqueous solvents are discussed in the context of attempting to identify possible approaches to constructing enzymes which exhibit enhanced stability in non-aqueous media. These approaches are illustrated by several examples where protein engineering has resulted in enzymes that are better suited for catalysis in organic solvents.
