A Phenolic Acid Decarboxylase-Based All-Enzyme Hydrogel for Flow Reactor Technology

• Published in: Micromachines (Basel) Vol. 10; no. 12; p. 795
• Main Authors: Mittmann, Esther, Gallus, Sabrina, Bitterwolf, Patrick, Oelschlaeger, Claude, Willenbacher, Norbert, Niemeyer, Christof M, Rabe, Kersten S
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Switzerland MDPI AG 20-11-2019; MDPI
• Subjects: biocatalysis; Chromatography; Continuous flow; Crosslinking; enzyme immobilization; Enzymes; Gene expression; hydrogel; Hydrogels; microreactor; Microreactors; NMR; Nuclear magnetic resonance; phenolic acid decarboxylase; Phenolic acids; Plasmids; Proteins; Reactor technology; Reactors; Rheological properties; Self-assembly; spycatcher/spytag; United States > US; Germany; enzyme immobilization; hydrogel; microreactor; phenolic acid decarboxylase; SpyCatcher/SpyTag; biocatalysis
• ISSN: 2072-666X; 2072-666X
• DOI: 10.3390/mi10120795

Carrier-free enzyme immobilization techniques are an important development in the field of efficient and streamlined continuous synthetic processes using microreactors. Here, the use of monolithic, self-assembling all-enzyme hydrogels is expanded to phenolic acid decarboxylases. This provides access to the continuous flow production of
-hydroxystyrene from
-coumaric acid for more than 10 h with conversions ≥98% and space time yields of 57.7 g·(d·L)
. Furthermore, modulation of the degree of crosslinking in the hydrogels resulted in a defined variation of the rheological behavior in terms of elasticity and mesh size of the corresponding materials. This work is addressing the demand of sustainable strategies for defunctionalization of renewable feedstocks.