Structural Rearrangements of Carbonic Anhydrase Entrapped in Sol-Gel Magnetite Determined by ATR-FTIR Spectroscopy.

Enzymatically active nanocomposites are a perspective class of bioactive materials that finds their application in numerous fields of science and technology ranging from biosensors and therapeutic agents to industrial catalysts. Key properties of such systems are their stability and activity under various conditions, the problems that are addressed in any research devoted to this class of materials. Understanding the principles that govern these properties is critical to the development of the field, especially when it comes to a new class of bioactive systems.

DiZyme: Open-Access Expandable Resource for Quantitative Prediction of Nanozyme Catalytic Activity.

Enzymes suffer from high cost, complex purification, and low stability. Development of low-cost artificial enzymes of comparative or higher effectiveness is desired. Given its complexity, it is desired to presume their activities prior to experiments.

α-Amylase@Ferria: Magnetic Nanocomposites with Enhanced Thermal Stability for Starch Hydrolysis.

The present study is devoted to the development of a new class recyclable magnetic catalytic nanocomposites for starch hydrolysis. α-Amylase was entrapped within a magnetite-derived xerogel matrix in a course of a room-temperature sol-gel transition, leading to enzyme immobilization within the pores of a rigid magnetic matrix. For hybrid organo-inorganic composites with enzyme mass fractions less than 10 wt %, no enzyme leaching was observed.

Protection of enzymes from photodegradation by entrapment within alumina.

Most enzymes are highly sensitive to UV-light in all of its ranges and their activity can irreversibly drop even after a short time of exposure. Here we report a solution of this problem by using sol-gel matrices as effective protectors against this route of enzyme inactivation and denaturation. The concept presented here utilizes several modes of action: First, the entrapment within the rigid ceramic sol-gel matrix, inhibits denaturation motions, and the hydration shell around the entrapped protein provides extra protection.