ИСТИНА

The use of renewable feedstock, such as agricultural byproducts are gaining importance as starting material for future biotech products. Agricultural and forestry materials, including (ligno)cellulose or starch are first converted into sugars, which are subsequently transformed into fine and bulk chemicals, bioplastics, biofuels, pharmaceuticals via fermentation. High sensitive and precise analytical methods are needed in the modern bioprocess development and optimization of different biochemical and/or microbial technological steps of bioconversion of renewables. Investigation of polysaccharides in initial plant materials, as well as quantification of the products of bioconversion, improvement of the properties of new enzymes and fine tuning of biocatalytical processes can lead to ecologically friendly and cost-efficient alternatives to fossil-based technologies. Modern chromatography and mass-spectrometry methods are widely used in the analysis of simple sugars and plant polysaccharides, alcohols, organic and amino acids as microbial metabolites. These methods are extremely efficient in proteomic research, in biochemical properties and catalytic performance evaluation of new enzymes derived from natural and recombinant strains. The study of the main products of the enzymatic hydrolysis of plant polysaccharides, as well as minor amounts of side-products provides important information about the specificity and mechanisms of the enzymatic reactions. High sensitive methods with wide dynamic range based on HPAEX chromatography with pulse amperometric detection were optimized and applied in the analysis of mono- and oligosaccharides, derived for different sourses of biomass after chemical and/or enzymatic hydrolysis. Modern biotechnology processes requires enzymes with enhanced thermostability and salt tolerance for use in waste/seawater or in the presence of ionic liquids. Computational analysis for loop engineering, salt bridge optimization, and surface charge optimization was used for prediction of promising mutations. Efficient two-step screening system was developed for selection of modified fungal endoglucanase II and cellobiohydrolase I with improved thermo- and salt stability.