Integrating data mining and molecular modelling for enzyme design

Enzymes are promising catalysts for a wide range of biocatalytic processes. However, in most cases the performance of commercially available enzymes is below the threshold of economic viability for the biocatalytic process, and it will therefore be necessary to develop an optimal biocatalyst with appropriate stability. Because protein engineers (in contrast to mechanical or electrical engineers) still lack a deep understanding of their system under investigation, trial-and-error strategies are widely used. By integrating data mining and molecular modellig, we obtain a deeper insight into the relationships between sequence, structure and functon of an enzyme family, search for promising enzyme candidates by navigating sequence space and efficiently design enzyme variants with improved properties under given process conditions.In