Progress in the Molecular Mechanism and Strategies for Thermostability of Thermophilc Enzyme

The thermophilic enzyme from thermophilic bacteria has the thermostability and thermophilic characteristic. Comparative studies of the thermophilic and mesophilic enzymes showed that they had high homologous sequence,high similar 3D structure and catalytic mechanism. After the biochemical and molecular characteristics of the thermophilic enzyme were simply summarized,the molecular mechanism for thermostability and the strategies to improve the protein thermostability were mainly discussed. The molecular mechanism for protein thermostability includes the following:the amino acids composition properties,the intramolecular interaction strength,the protein structure,docking N and C terminal,shorting and docking the cycle,the posttranslational modification. The strategies to improve the thermostability includes protein engineering strategies(the consequence concept,the rational design,directed evolution,polypeptide chain extension and computational model),chemical modification and addition of protective agent.