Abstract
Phasins are proteins found on the surface of natural
polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA) granules. Due to their high affinity for PHA,
they can potentially be used as a fusion partner to immobilize other
proteins. In this study, we investigated the immobilization of a lipase
onto electrospun polyhydroxybutyrate nanofibers. Due to a superior
surface area-to-volume ratio, PHB nanofibers retained much larger
amounts of enzyme than conventional immobilization supports. More
importantly, when used in combination with a phasin tag, the enzyme
immobilized on PHB nanofibers exhibited markedly higher activity and
reusability. Our approach combines the advantageous features of
nanofibrous materials and the regio-specificity of biomolecular
interactions for the efficient use of enzymes.