Immobilization of enzymes on polymers with upper critical solution temperature: promising engineering of enzymes for biocatalysis

Abstract

Polymers with upper critical solution temperature (UCST) can find promising applications in biocatalysis using immobilized enzymes, in that UCST-type polymer-immobilized enzymes use lower temperatures for biocatalyst separation than homogeneous biocatalytic reactions to ensure the prevention of the immobilized enzymes from deactivation as well as producing high biocatalytic performance. Herein, we have provided an overview of the developments of UCST-type polymer-immobilized enzymes for biocatalysis by reviewing the fundamentals of thermoresponsive polymers and the application of UCST-type polymers in the fabrication and biocatalysis of immobilized enzymes present in the literature. Furthermore, published studies on UCST-type polymer-immobilized enzymes involving various categories of polymers in this research area are reviewed. The characteristics of various UCST-type polymer-immobilized enzymes and their advantages and disadvantages in terms of biocatalytic performance, separation and reusability are summarized with an outlook on the engineering of enzymes with UCST-type polymers for biocatalysis.