Development of novel biocatalysts from marine and extreme bioresources

Abstract

To develop useful biocatalysts from marine and extreme bioresources, we are currently collecting samples from a variety of marine and extreme environments such as coastal sea, deep-sea environments, Antarctic and Arctic regions, tropical oceans and so on. The collected samples were pretreated or enriched with various reagents for the purpose of enhancing the survival of useful target microorganisms and then, the isolated bacteria were stored systemically based on the analysis of 16S rRNA sequences. The collected resources were distributed to collaborators or participants in the MEGRC (Marine & Extreme Genome Research Centre)program and tested for various biocatalytic activities.In this review, the studies on development of useful enantioselective enzymes such as lipases and epoxide hydrolases from marine bacterial or metagenomic resources were discussed. In addition to develop enantioselective enzymes by conventional or metagenomic approach, the genomic approach has been applied to determine whole genome sequence of a limited number of microorganisms collected from various extreme environments, showing extraordinary physiological characteristics and the collected genetic information is put on intensive bioinformatic analysis to develop various useful biocatalysts in silico. The following studies show that marine resources are invaluable for the useful biocatalysts, and the enantioselective enzymes from marine and extreme bioresources have a great potential to be effectively used as a novel biocatalyst for production of chiral bioactive compound in the pharmaceutical industry as well.