Archaeal enzymes are playing an important role in industrial biotechnology. Many representatives of organisms living in “extreme” conditions, the so-called Extremophiles, belong to the archaeal kingdom of life. This paper will review studies carried by the Exeter group and others regarding archaeal enzymes that have important applications in commercial biocatalysis. Some of these biocatalysts are already being used in large scale industrial processes for the production of optically pure drug intermediates and amino acids and their analogues. Other enzymes have been characterised at laboratory scale regarding their substrate specificity and properties for potential industrial application. The increasing availability of DNA sequences from new archaeal species and metagenomes will provide a continuing resource to identify new enzymes of commercial interest using both bioinformatics and screening approaches.

中文翻译：

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古菌酶及其在工业生物催化剂中的应用。

古菌酶在工业生物技术中发挥着重要作用。许多生活在“极端”条件下的生物代表，即所谓的极端微生物，属于古菌生命王国。本文将回顾埃克塞特小组和其他人进行的有关在商业生物催化中具有重要应用的古菌酶的研究。其中一些生物催化剂已经用于大规模工业过程中，用于生产光学纯药物中间体和氨基酸及其类似物。其他酶已在实验室规模上对其底物特异性和潜在工业应用的特性进行了表征。