Screening for novel industrial biocatalysts

Biocatalysis, the use of microbial cells or isolated enzymes in the production of fine chemicals, is steadily moving towards becoming accepted as an indispensable too] in the inventory of modern synthetic chemistry [1]. It is estimated that in 10% of the cases biocatalysis will provide an overall superior synthetic strategy over traditional organic chemistry [2]. This remarkable development in a field coined "white biotechnology" is due to the growing recognition in the industry of the capabilities and performance of enzymes as exemplified in a growing number of implemented processes [3,4], examples running at a scale of >1000 tons product/year. Breakthroughs in the key biotechnological areas of a) genetic resource access (explicitly the explorability of non-cultivated microorganisms), b) enzyme screening and discovery and c) in vitro evolution of proteins to find and optimize enzymes to become near-ideally suited biocatalysts have been instrumental in pushing industrial biocatalysis to where it stands today [5,6]. With these technological options it seems that future use of biocatalysis is limited only by the availability of the biocatalyst [3], the screening for which is subject of this review.