An automatic approach for the evaluation of the effect of ionic liquids and deep eutectic solvents on elastase

Studies of the effects of ionic liquids (IL) and deep eutectic solvents (DES) in biocatalysis are nowadays useful and challenging. Despite ILs and DES being chemically different, they present the tunability as a common property. Changing the anion and the cation in the ILs or the hydrogen bond donor (HBD) and acceptor (HBA) in the DES, it is possible to adjust the design of these compounds according with the respective application. These adjustments can be very useful in modifying the enzyme activity and selectivity. Thus, in this work the effect of ten ILs and nine DES with different structures in elastase were studied. This enzyme has an important role as biomarker for inflammation and infection processes due to its increase by abnormal neutrophil stimulation. Thus, a correlation between the structures and the effect on the elastase was established and at the same time it was verified that each property should not be con-sidered as an independent factor but rather as an integrated view. For the ILs and DES with inhibitory effect on elastase, inhibitory profiles were stablished and IC50 values calculated.To perform these studies a lSIA-LOV system was developed and showed to be an automatic, rapid, sim-ple, robust, and versatile tool, leading to an accurate control of the reaction conditions and a reduction of reagents consumption with a consequent reduction of the costs per analysis and of the environmental impact.(c) 2023 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.