Construction of supramolecular laccase enzymes and understanding of catalytic dye degradation using multispectral and molecular docking approaches

Abstract

A non-covalent supramolecular enzyme system, which is formed by non-covalent interactions of an enzyme with substrate analogs, shows better enzyme catalytic activity than the enzyme itself. A non-covalent supramolecular laccase-dye substrate analog system (SL-DSA) was designed to confirm the enzyme catalyzing mechanism. A range of spectral and electrochemical methods showed that the non-covalent interaction is important in the catalytic degradation reaction of 13 dyes. The decolorization rate was 10–54% higher than with laccase (LAC) alone. Thus, the SL-DSA has better catalytic activity than LAC itself in the three-step degradation reaction of dyes. The enzymatic mechanism of SL-DSA identified may act to supplement the mechanism of the enzyme binding directly with the substrate.