The Use of Microorganism-Derived Enzymes for Bioremediation of Soil Pollutants

The Concept Of Enzymology In Soil Pollutant Bioremediation

Enzymes are proteins that speed up biochemical reactions without being changed. To enhance the conversion of reactants to products, enzymes lower activation energy used during the process (Piotrowska-Długosz, 2017). Regions of enzymes involved in catalytic processes are known as active sites whose association with the rest of the protein occur through covalent or non-covalent bonding. An enzyme may have one or more essential catalytic groups or active sites. These are known as apoenzymes if they are made of protein or prosthetic group if they are nonproteins or holoenzyme if it is a combination of the two (Karigar & Rao, 2011). The nomenclature of enzymes is related to their catalytic group, their function and/or the reactions that they catalyse. Identification and classification of enzymes is dependent on their enzyme commission (EC) number, which is defined by the international union of biochemistry and molecular biology¹ (Karigar & Rao, 2011). All enzymes are categorised in six groups: - synthetases also known as ligases, isomerases, lyases, hydrolases, transferases and oxidoreductases.