Enzyme Reaction in Polymer-Polymer Organic Solvent Two-Phase Systems

Enzymes have been shown to operate successfully under nonphysiological conditions, e.g., in water-poor media consisting of almost pure nonpolar solvents. These new reaction conditions offer interesting possibilities to expand the scope of enzyme technology. An essential issue in this context is the method by which the enzyme is contacted with the solvent phase. A range of solid phase immobilization techniques (1 ,2 ) are available; use of enzymes in microemulsions (3 ,4 ), and chemically modified enzymes (5 -7 ) that are solubilized in the organic phase has also been reported.