VlpA psychophilic esterase

Cold-tolerant bacterial esterases and lipases have the unusual property of a flexible structure which allows these enzymes to accommodate a broad range of substrates and to be more solvent tolerant. These properties coupled with the stereoselectivity of enzymes make esterases and lipases ideal catalysts for the chemical modification of pharmacophore molecules. Employing an array of techniques to identify esterase/lipase activity for industrial processes an in-house microbial collection of psychrophilic microbes was used to screen for specific esterase/lipase activities. Two marine bacteria yielded esterase/lipase genes encoding LypA (V. cholera) and VlpA (arctic-derived Vibro sp.) . These enzymes have broad spectrum substrate activity and VlpA exhibits tolerance to solvents by retaining its catalytic activity in buffer-solvent mixtures.