Reverse action of hydrolases in frozen aqueous solutions.

The reverse action of hydrolases provides an attractive alternative to the chemical synthesis of peptides, oligosaccharides and oligonucleotides. Freezing the reaction mixture has proved to suppress competitive reactions in enzyme-catalysed peptide synthesis. After a short discussion of the influence of freezing on enzyme-catalysed reactions the current manuscript gives an overview of protease-catalysed peptide synthesis and the possible reasons of the yield-enhancing effect of freezing. The application of glycosidases and ribonucleases for synthetic purposes in frozen reaction mixtures is summarized.