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Environmental biotechnology can simply be described as "the optimal use of nature, in the form of plants, animals, bacteria, fungi and algae, to produce renewable energy, food and nutrients in a synergistic integrated cycle of profit making processes where the waste of each process becomes the feedstock for another process". [3]
Some enzymes are used commercially, for example, in the synthesis of antibiotics. Some household products use enzymes to speed up chemical reactions: enzymes in biological washing powders break down protein, starch or fat stains on clothes, and enzymes in meat tenderizer break down proteins into smaller molecules, making the meat easier to chew.
These enzymes degrade complex organic matter such as cellulose and hemicellulose into simple sugars that enzyme-producing organisms use as a source of carbon, energy, and nutrients. [2] Grouped as hydrolases , lyases , oxidoreductases and transferases , [ 1 ] these extracellular enzymes control soil enzyme activity through efficient degradation ...
This presents the possibility of utilizing enzymes found in these organisms in parallel to how thermophilic organism enzymes are used, but at low temperatures as opposed to high temperatures. [4] Having the ability to live in such harsh environment comes from the organisms traits and abilities that are coded into their genomes.
Microbial enzymes are widely utilized as biocatalysts in fields such as biotechnology, agriculture, and pharmaceuticals. Metagenomic data serve as a valuable resource for identifying novel CUEs from previously unknown microbes present in complex microbial communities across diverse ecosystems.
-Enzymes exhibit extreme selectivity towards their substrates. Typically enzymes display three major types of selectivity: Chemoselectivity: Since the purpose of an enzyme is to act on a single type of functional group, other sensitive functionalities, which would normally react to a certain extent under chemical catalysis, survive. As a result ...
The catalysts, i.e. the enzymes, are amenable to improvement by genetic manipulation. [citation needed] Biotechnology usually is restrained by substrate scope. Petrochemicals for example are often not amenable to biotransformations, especially on the scale required for some applications, e.g. fuels.
Microbial biodegradation is the use of bioremediation and biotransformation methods to harness the naturally occurring ability of microbial xenobiotic metabolism to degrade, transform or accumulate environmental pollutants, including hydrocarbons (e.g. oil), polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), heterocyclic compounds (such as pyridine or quinoline ...