Assigning Functions of Unknown Enzymes by High-Throughput Enzyme Characterization

Abstract

The discovery of new enzymes is strongly enabled by the implementation of high-throughput screening methods to detect enzymatic activity in single organisms or clone expression libraries, or to benchmark their performances against known prototypes. In this chapter, a number of methods, applicable at high-throughput scale, are described that allow the screening and characterization of enzymes relevant to biotechnology, particularly, ester-hydrolases (esterases, lipases, phospholipases, and polyester hydrolases).

Keywords: Enzyme characterization; Ester-hydrolases; Esterase; High-throughput assays; Lipase; Metagenomics.