Newly discovered enzymes from nature are essential for the development of novel biocatalysts for industrial processes.

Recently, special focus has been on development of enzymes, which are active under extreme conditions like low or high temperatures, low or high pH, etc.

Such extreme enzymes may be isolated from microorganisms living in extreme environments e.g. in The Arctic and Antarctic, geysers and hot springs, acidic streems and soda lakes.

At Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences, we host the World's largest collection of Arctic bacteria with more than 6000 isolates from different environments in Greenland:The ice cap, sea ice, hot springs, soil & sediment as well as the spectacular ikaite tufa columns.

The microorganisms produce enzymes, many of which are active under extreme conditions.

Aim: In the project, the aim is to isolate and characterize novel enzymes, which may be applied within the detergent industry, food industry or in biotechnology.

Experimental: Several biotechnological techniques will be used in the project:

• Screening for novel enzymes using chromogenic substrates

• Characterization of the microorganism with respect to phylogeny, taxonomy, growth characteristics

• Characterization and purification of enzymes (activity experiments, protein purification, SDS PAGE)

• Cloning and characterization of enzyme encoding genes (DNA isolation, cloning, PCR, sequencing, bioinformatics)

• Production of recombinant enzymes (cloning of genes into expression vectors, production of recombinant enzymes, purification of enzymes
  
  
  Link: http://www.ikka.life.ku.dk(in Danish)

Contact and more information:

Peter Stougaard
Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences
Section for Genetics and Microbiology