NZYTech Analytical Enzymes and Kits

Patricia Ponte  Catarina IPD Guerreiro André Fernandes  Luís MA Ferreira Carlos MGA Fontes José AM Prates

Introduction

NZYTech - Genes and Enzymes, Ltd. is an ISO 9001:2008 certified company dedicated to research & development,  production and commercialization of biotech products and services to the community. One of its activity areas is the development, manufacture, supply and support of enzymatic bio-analysis test kits, with applications mainly in the food, feed, dairy and beverage industries. Enzymes are now finding many and widespread industrial applications. In general, the use of enzymes is considered to be safe, cost effective, and is associated with environmentally friendly technologies. Although research scientists realised the great potential for the application of enzymes in medical diagnostics and industrial fermentation, presently, most applications for analytical enzymes are in food industry. During the last years, taking advantage of our expertise in the production of highly active and pure recombinant enzymes, NZYTech has developed a wide variety of convenient analytical enzymes and kits, with a large range of applications, including in the food, feed, wine, brewing and dairy industries (Table 1). With the ability to rapidly develop new test kits in response to new legislation or developments in the food industry, such as in the labelling, the future of NZYTech in enzymatic bioanalysis is very promising.

Analytical Enzymes

Enzymes are biological macromolecules responsible for the thousands of metabolic processes that sustain life. They are highly selective catalysts, greatly accelerating the rate of metabolic reactions, from the digestion of food
to the synthesis of DNA. Most of enzymes are proteins, although some catalytic RNA molecules have been identified. Enzymes adopt a specific three-dimensional structure, and may employ organic (e.g. biotin) and inorganic (e.g. magnesium ion) cofactors to assist in catalysis. In enzymatic reactions, the molecules at the beginning of the process, called substrates, are converted into different molecules, called products. Almost all chemical reactions in a cell need enzymes in order to occur at rates sufficient for life. Since enzymes are selective for their substrates and speed up only a few reactions from among many possibilities, the set of enzymes made in a cell determines which metabolic pathways occur in that cell. The industrial application of enzymes began in the 1960 decade with the use of glucoamylase to produce in the degradation of starch into glucose. The next major development was the implementation of immobilised glucose isomerase in 1970s. Nowadays, enzymes are used in the industry when extremely specific
catalysts are required. However, enzymes in general are limited in the number of reactions they have evolved to catalyse and also by their lack of stability in organic solvents and at high temperatures. As a consequence, protein engineering is an active area of research and involves attempts to create new enzymes with novel properties, either through rational design or in vitro evolution. For an enzyme to be used for analytical purposes, it must be of exceptional purity as individual enzymes are generally found alongwith many other molecules and these impurities must be removed before the enzyme is of any use. Moreover, analytical enzymes are often required in large amounts, thus requiring cheap and rapid purification processes. The core expertise of NZYTech is the production of highly pure and active recombinant enzymes, by using different strategies, including High-Throughput (HTP) cloning, purification and the detailed analysis of their catalytic properties. Therefore, NZYTech has developed cutting edge technologies to identify and characterize the most appropriate enzymes for a specific application, as well as