Towards a ‘tailor made’ biocatalysis

Abstract

Microbial enzymes are used today in the most diverse industrial sectors. However, it is only in recent years that fundamental knowledge has been acquired that allows for a rational – rather than an empirical – development and application of microbial enzyme processes. These enzymes are primarily used as an end product or a processing aid in the agricultural sector, food and feed industry, the detergent sector, the textile industry and health care sector. In these sectors they replace or adjust the familiar (bio)chemical processes, or plant or animal enzymes. But they can also perform totally new ‘chemical’ reactions, with the principal aim of ‘improving’ and/or modifying the ‘substrate’.