Protein Engineering of Substrate Specificity toward Nitrilases: Strategies and Challenges.

Nitrilase is extensively applied across diverse sectors owing to its unique catalytic properties. Nevertheless, in industrial production, nitrilases often face issues such as low catalytic efficiency, limited substrate range, suboptimal selectivity, and side reaction products, which have garnered heightened attention. With the widespread recognition that the structure of enzymes has a direct impact on their catalytic properties, an increasing number of researchers are beginning to optimize the functional characteristics of nitrilases by modifying their structures, in order to meet specific industrial or biotechnology application needs.