Applications and prospective of peroxidase biocatalysis in the environmental field

Abstract

Environmental protection is, doubtless, one of the most important challenges for the human kind. The huge amount of pollutants derived from industrial activities represents a threat for the environment and ecologic equilibrium. Phenols and halogenated phenols, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, endocrine disruptive chemicals, pesticides, dioxins, polychlorinated biphenyls, industrial dyes, and other xenobiotics are among the most important pollutants. A large variety of these xenobiotics are substrates for peroxidases and thus susceptible to enzymatic transformation. The literature reports mainly the use of horseradish peroxidase, manganese peroxidase, lignin peroxidase, and chloroperoxidase on the transformation of these pollutants. Peroxidases are enzymes able to transform a variety of compounds following a free radical mechanism, giving oxidized or polymerized products. The peroxidase transformation of these pollutants is accompanied by a reduction in their toxicity, due to a biological activity loss, a reduction in the bioavailability or due to the removal from aqueous phase, especially when the pollutant is found in water. In addition, when the pollutants are present in soil, peroxidases catalyze a covalent binding to soil organic matter. In most of cases, oxidized products are less toxic and easily biodegradable than the parent compounds. In spite of their versatility and potential use in environmental processes, peroxidases are not applied at large scale yet. Diverse challenges, such as stability, redox potential, and the production of large amounts, should be solved in order to apply peroxidases in the pollutant transformation. In this chapter, we critically review the transformation of different xenobiotics by peroxidases, with special attention on the identified transformation products, the probable reaction mechanisms, and the toxicity reports. Finally, the design and development of an environmental biocatalyst is discussed. The design challenges are mainly focused on the enzyme stability in the presence of hydrogen peroxide and operational conditions, an enzyme with high redox potential to be able to oxidize a wide range of xenobiotics or pollutants, and the protein overexpression at large-scale in industrial microorganisms is discussed. © 2010 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.