This work presents an efficient and facile strategy to prepare an α-amylase bioreactor. As enzymes are quite large to be immobilized inside metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), the tertiary and quaternary structures of α-amylase were first disrupted using a combination of urea, dithiothreitol (DTT), and iodoacetamide (IAA). After losing its tertiary structure, the unfolded proteins can now penetrate into the microporous MOFs, affording fragmented α-amylase@MOF bioreactors. Among the different MOFs evaluated, UiO-66 gave the most promising potential due to the size-matching effect of the α-helix of the fragmented α-amylase with the pore size of UiO-66. The prepared bioreactor exhibited high yields of small carbohydrate (maltose) even when reused up to 15 times (>80% conversion).
Keywords: bioreactor; catalysis; enzyme immobilization; metal-organic framework; size matching.