Hydrolase

Hydrolase enzymes, in particular lipases, dominate the field of biocatalysis due to: their commercial availability; a reasonable number available for screening; a lack of need for expensive or demanding co-factors; versatility for synthetic or hydrolytic usage; and, aqueous or solvent based reactions. From an industrial perspective they often admirably meet the essential criteria for “industrial readiness”, such as availability, performance (turnover, selectivity, volume efficiency) and freedom from intellectual property issues.

Hydrolases are useful for stereoselective hydrolysis in aqueous media. Since the hydrolytic reaction is reversible in non-aqueous system, they can also catalyze the formation of esters by acyl transfer or the amide and peracid formation.
They are very powerful for the resolution of secondary alcohols or amines.
These enzymes accept a very broad range of substrates, do not require any cofactor, and exhibit good to excellent selectivity.

They offer a mild method for peptide formation.