title: Metagenomics as a Tool for Enzyme Discovery: Hydrolytic Enzymes from Marine-Related Metagenomes.
abstract: This chapter discusses metagenomics and its application for enzyme discovery, with a focus on hydrolytic enzymes from marine metagenomic libraries. With less than one percent of culturable microorganisms in the environment, metagenomics, or the collective study of community genetics, has opened up a rich pool of uncharacterized metabolic pathways, enzymes, and adaptations. This great untapped pool of genes provides the particularly exciting potential to mine for new biochemical activities or novel enzymes with activities tailored to peculiar sets of environmental conditions. Metagenomes also represent a huge reservoir of novel enzymes for applications in biocatalysis, biofuels, and bioremediation. Here we present the results of enzyme discovery for four enzyme activities, of particular industrial or environmental interest, including esterase/lipase, glycosyl hydrolase, protease and dehalogenase.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemical Engineering and Applied Chemistry, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, M5G 1L6, Canada.
authors.forename: Ana
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Popovic
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemical Engineering and Applied Chemistry, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, M5G 1L6, Canada.
authors.forename: Anatoly
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Tchigvintsev
authors.affiliation: School of Biological Sciences, Bangor University, Gwynedd, LL57 2UW, UK.
authors.forename: Hai
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Tran
authors.affiliation: School of Biological Sciences, Bangor University, Gwynedd, LL57 2UW, UK.
authors.forename: Tatyana N
authors.initials: TN
authors.lastname: Chernikova
authors.affiliation: School of Biological Sciences, Bangor University, Gwynedd, LL57 2UW, UK.
authors.forename: Olga V
authors.initials: OV
authors.lastname: Golyshina
authors.affiliation: Institute for Coastal Marine Environment, CNR, 98122, Messina, Italy.
authors.forename: Michail M
authors.initials: MM
authors.lastname: Yakimov
authors.affiliation: School of Biological Sciences, Bangor University, Gwynedd, LL57 2UW, UK.
authors.forename: Peter N
authors.initials: PN
authors.lastname: Golyshin
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemical Engineering and Applied Chemistry, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, M5G 1L6, Canada. a.iakounine@utoronto.ca.
authors.forename: Alexander F
authors.initials: AF
authors.lastname: Yakunin
mesh_terms: D004950:Esterases / Q000302:isolation & purification; D015723:Gene Library; D008049:Lipase / Q000302:isolation & purification; D054892:Metagenome; D056186:Metagenomics / Q000379:methods*; D010447:Peptide Hydrolases / Q000302:isolation & purification
chemical_list: D004950:Esterases; D008049:Lipase; D010447:Peptide Hydrolases
keywords: Enzyme screening; Gene discovery; Gene library; Hydrolase; Metagenome