Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
hydrolyzing esters in water or in organic solvents for esterifi cation.
Aspergillus niger
lipases were shown to be very effective in the
synthesis of compounds like the beta-blocker (R)-Nifenalol
(Pedragosa-Moreau et al. 1997) and the angiotensin-converting
enzyme inhibitor Catopril (Sih et al. 1988), with an EE value of 80%
and 98%, respectively.
(2) proteases; mostly applied for
in vitro
hydrolysis of protein samples
followed by chromatography to enrich or purify the bioactive
compounds as ACE inhibitors (see above), but also applied for
the reverse reaction to synthesize aspartame and other peptides of
pharmaceutical importance.
(3) oxidoreductases; versatile class of enzymes, used for specific
hydroxylation of complex bioactive molecules such as sterols,
taxanes and terpenes, in order to increase solubility or introduction
of new side-chains (see for examples Lamm et al. 2007). Whole cell
bioconversions have the advantage of easy regeneration of the co-
factors involved.
Fungal Pharmaceutical Enzymes
Only a small proportion of all commercially applied fungal enzymes is
used as a highly specialised pharmaceutical product. This will strongly
increase in the coming years with the increasing aging of the world
population. The ratio between raw food and processed food will further
decrease, which will increase the need for additives. Also, food will become
scarcer and alternative sources need to be (more widely) explored and thus
digested. Therefore, there is a wide variety of fungal derived digestive
aids on the market, which can be dosed in various ways (pills, liquids,
etc.): amylases (i.e., fungal diastase like Fungamyl BG of Novozymes),
β-glucosidases, glucoamylases, (hemi-)cellulases, lactases (to degrade
lactose by acid lactases like Tolerase of DSM produced by
A. oryzae
),
lipases (as part of Pancreatine from
A. oryzae
prescribed with pancreas-
insuffi ciency) and proteases (to degrade gluten for coeliakie patients, see
Mitea et al. 2008). Other applications are focusing on fi ghting (symptoms
of) diseases like cancer (Theantana1 et al. 2007) or anti-infl ammatory
activity (Tasaka et al. 1980).
References
Abe, Y., T. Suzuki, C. Ono, K. Iwamoto, M. Hosobuchi and H. Yoshikawa.
2002a. Molecular cloning and characterization of an ML-236B (compactin)
