Department of Biotechnology and Biosciences, State University of Milano-Bicocca, Piazza della Scienza 2, 20126 Milano, Italy.
Institute of Biochemistry and Technical Biochemistry, University of Stuttgart, 70569 Stuttgart, Germany.
Biotechnol J. 2018 May;13(5):e1700155. doi: 10.1002/biot.201700155. Epub 2018 Mar 6.
Lipase-catalyzed transesterification of triglycerides and alcohols to obtain biodiesel is an environmentally friendly and sustainable route for fuels production since, besides proceeding in mild reaction conditions, it allows for the use of low-cost feedstocks that contain water and free fatty acids, for example non-edible oils and waste oils. This review article reports recent advances in the field and focus in particular on a major issue in the enzymatic process, the inactivation of most lipases caused by methanol, the preferred acyl acceptor used for alcoholysis. The recent results about immobilization of enzymes on nano-materials and the use of whole-cell biocatalysts, as well as the use of cell-surface display technologies and metabolic engineering strategies for microbial production of biodiesel are described. It is discussed also insight into the effects of methanol on lipases obtained by modeling approaches and report on studies aimed at mining novel alcohol stable enzymes or at improving robustness in existing ones by protein engineering.
脂肪酶催化的甘油三酯和醇的酯交换反应是一种环保且可持续的燃料生产途径，因为它不仅可以在温和的反应条件下进行，而且可以使用含有水和游离脂肪酸（例如非食用油脂和废油脂）的低成本原料。本文综述了该领域的最新进展，重点介绍了酶促过程中的一个主要问题，即甲醇对大多数脂肪酶的失活作用，甲醇是醇解反应中首选的酰基受体。本文还介绍了酶在纳米材料上的固定化以及全细胞生物催化剂的应用，以及用于微生物生物柴油生产的细胞表面展示技术和代谢工程策略。此外，还通过建模方法探讨了甲醇对脂肪酶的影响，并报告了旨在挖掘新型耐甲醇酶或通过蛋白质工程提高现有酶稳定性的研究。
