Stabilization of Enzymes for the Destruction of Toxic Materials and Chemical Agents

Eikos will exploit the power of microarray technology to rapidly identify and isolate a wide variety of ultra-stable organophosphorous anhydrolases (OPA's) to formulate an enzyme cocktail capable of decontaminating OP nerve and blistering agents across aspectrum of temperatures and pH's without loss of activity or denaturation. Extremozymes (enzymes isolated from extremophiles) are infinitely more active and less susceptible to denaturation in traditionally inhospitable environments such as non-neutralpH, oxidizing conditions, and high and low temperatures. Therefore, these enzymes are ideally suited for enzymatic catalysis in the field. The arduous task of isolating such enzymes has precluded their widespread use in industrial catalysis. Theemergence of microarray technology has made it possible to quickly and efficiently screen an enormous number of organisms for any activity of interest. Eikos will fabricate an OPA specific microarray and screen multiple extremophilic organisms for thepresence of detoxifying enzymes. Genetic information determined with the microarray will then be used to swiftly isolate each enzyme. A collection of enzymes collected in this manner will possess the catalytic ability to detoxify OP nerve and blisteringagents in almost any environment. The combination of microarray technology and extraordinary extremozyme stability will revolutionize industrial enzymatic catalysis.An extremophile array will be capable of screening for not only OPAs, but alsopolymerases, proteases, restriction enzymes, etc. and will find utility in commercial and industrial markets. Industrial enzymes represent a $2 billion annual market. Most notable markets include detergents manufacturing with a vested interest in hightemperature proteases, environmental chemistry interested in bioremediation, the pharmaceutical industry interested in novel natural product synthesis, and energy related fields interested in the natural gas production of many extremophilic bacteria.