Fungal enzymes for environmental purposes, a molecular biology challenge.

In their capacity to transform xenobiotics and polluting compounds, fungal peroxidases and their use in the environmental field have a recognized and important potential. However, both fundamental and practical issues, such as enzyme stability and availability, have delayed the development of industrial applications. Three main protein engineering challenges have been identified: (1) Enhancement of operational stability, specifically hydrogen peroxide stability in the case of fungal peroxidases. (2) Increase of the enzyme redox potential in order to widen the substrate range. (3) Development of heterologous expression and industrial production. The bottlenecks, advances and strategies that have been proven successful are discussed. Copyright 2008 S. Karger AG, Basel.