Functional Screening for the Discovery of New Extremophilic Enzymes

Enzymes produced by extremophiles offer an attractive solution to industrial biocatalysis since unlike most industrial enzymes today, extremozymes are more stable and robust, therefore making them ideal candidates for industrial applications. For industry, confirming the functionality of a biocatalyst under the conditions of a particular process makes the difference between obtaining or not the required product. Although the molecular approaches allow access to genes of interest in a fast way, to obtain large amounts of functional proteins, it is not possible by the sole use of genomics. Additionally, these approaches cannot discern properties such as: activity, pH and temperature stability, and inhibitors, only possible to measure through a functional approach. New technologies will need to integrate the functional approach into the large-scale biotechnology by implementing the technological capacity to analyse some intrinsic features to search for various enzymatic activities at the same time. This chapter will analyse the most recent and relevant advances for the discovery and development of extremophilic enzymes with a special emphasis in the implementation of functional screening strategies as well as rapid and efficient discovery tools. Furthermore, a group of selected biotransformations will be analysed in the context of the applicability of extremozymes in an industrial context.