Interaction of small molecules with fungal laccase: A Surface Plasmon Resonance based study.

Laccases have a great potential for use in industrial and biotechnological applications. It has affinity towards phenolics and finds major applications in the field of bioremediation. Here, Surface Plasmon Resonance (SPR) as a biosensor with immobilized laccase on chip surface has been studied. Laccase was immobilized by thiol coupling method and compounds containing increasing number of hydroxyl groups were analyzed for their binding affinity at various concentrations in millimolar range. The small molecules like phloroglucinol (1.532×10(-8) M), crocin (3.204×10(-3) M), ascorbic acid (8.331×10(-8) M), kojic acid (6.411×10(-7) M) and saffron (3.466×10(-7) M) were studied and respective KD values are obtained. The results were also confirmed by inhibition assay and IC50 values were calculated. All these molecules showed different affinity towards laccase in terms of KD values. This method may be useful for preliminary screening and characterization of small molecules as laccase substrates, inhibitors or modulators of activity. This method will be useful for rapid screening of phenolics in waste water because of high sensitivity.

Biotransformation studies of textile dye Remazol Orange 3R.

In the present study, biotransformation of Remazol Orange 3R (RO3R) was studied using well-known bacterial isolate Pseudomonas aeruginosa strain BCH. The dye was decolorized up to 98 % within 15 min. The induction in the level of various oxidoreductive enzymes viz. laccase, tyrosinase, veratryl alcohol oxidase and DCIP reductase were observed in the cells obtained after decolorization of RO3R, which supports their role in decolorization. The metabolites of RO3R obtained after biodegradation were identified and characterized by various analytical techniques viz, HPLC, FTIR, and GC-MS. The RO3R was transformed to the N-(7 amino 8 hydroxy-napthalen-2yl) actamide (m/z, 198), Acetamide (m/z, 59) and Napthalen-1-ol (m/z, 144).