Johansen Katja S
Division of Industrial Biotechnology, Chalmers Technical University, Gothenburg SE-412 96, Sweden
Biochem Soc Trans. 2016 Feb;44(1):143-9. doi: 10.1042/BST20150204.
The recent discovery of copper-dependent lytic polysaccharide mono-oxygenases (LPMOs) has opened up a vast area of research covering several fields of application. The biotech company Novozymes A/S holds patents on the use of these enzymes for the conversion of steam-pre-treated plant residues such as straw to free sugars. These patents predate the correct classification of LPMOs and the striking synergistic effect of fungal LPMOs when combined with canonical cellulases was discovered when fractions of fungal secretomes were evaluated in industrially relevant enzyme performance assays. Today, LPMOs are a central component in the Cellic CTec enzyme products which are used in several large-scale plants for the industrial production of lignocellulosic ethanol. LPMOs are characterized by an N-terminal histidine residue which, together with an internal histidine and a tyrosine residue, co-ordinates a single copper atom in a so-called histidine brace. The mechanism by which oxygen binds to the reduced copper atom has been reported and the general mechanism of copper-oxygen-mediated activation of carbon is being investigated in the light of these discoveries. LPMOs are widespread in both the fungal and the bacterial kingdoms, although the range of action of these enzymes remains to be elucidated. However, based on the high abundance of LPMOs expressed by microbes involved in the decomposition of organic matter, the importance of LPMOs in the natural carbon-cycle is predicted to be significant. In addition, it has been suggested that LPMOs play a role in the pathology of infectious diseases such as cholera and to thus be relevant in the field of medicine.
最近对铜依赖性裂解多糖单加氧酶（LPMOs）的发现开辟了一个广阔的研究领域，涵盖了多个应用领域。生物技术公司诺维信公司拥有关于使用这些酶将蒸汽预处理的植物残渣（如秸秆）转化为游离糖的专利。这些专利早于LPMOs的正确分类，并且当在工业相关的酶性能测定中评估真菌分泌蛋白质组的组分时，发现了真菌LPMOs与经典纤维素酶结合时显著的协同效应。如今，LPMOs是Cellic CTec酶产品的核心成分，这些产品被用于几家大型工厂以工业规模生产木质纤维素乙醇。LPMOs的特征是一个N端组氨酸残基，它与一个内部组氨酸和一个酪氨酸残基一起，在一个所谓的组氨酸支架中配位一个单一的铜原子。氧气与还原态铜原子结合的机制已被报道，并且鉴于这些发现，正在研究铜 - 氧介导的碳活化的一般机制。LPMOs在真菌和细菌界都广泛存在，尽管这些酶的作用范围仍有待阐明。然而，基于参与有机物分解的微生物所表达的LPMOs的高丰度，预计LPMOs在自然碳循环中具有重要意义。此外，有人提出LPMOs在诸如霍乱等传染病的病理学中起作用，因此在医学领域具有相关性。
