Recombinant Protein Technology for Enzmye-Based Analytical Chemistry

Environmental protection requires chemistry. In particular, it requires analytical chemistry. And analytical chemistry involves the use of many reagents and solvents that are inimical to environmental quality and human health. It seems ironic and unfair that the people most closely associated with environmental monitoring and health need to compromise the health of their own environment in order to understand the processes going on around them.

Biotechnology has a role in the future of environmental protection. Chemistry requires harsh environments because energy is required to affect most reactions. Catalysts reduce this activation energy to conditions more in tune to the standard environment (STP). Enzymes are protein catalysts that biological systems use to accomplish the complex chemical reactions that metabolism requires. For most chemical reactions, there is an enzyme that can make it happen efficiently at low energy.

The Nitrate Elimination Company (USA), NECi, is dedicated to the application of enzymes to the solution of environmental challenges, especially for wet chemistry analytical methods. Current focus is on analysis of nitrate and phosphate, the two agricultural nutrients important in water quality protection. NECi’s test kits and reagents for nitrate detection have been on the market since 1993. NECi’s recombinant nitrate reductase AtNaR2 is specified in US Geological Survey Methods I-2457-11 and I-2458-11 for nitrate determination in water using discrete analyser instruments.

NECi has formulated nitrate test kits and reagents for manual, automated, and on-site applications. Enzyme-based phosphate enzymes and methods will be market-ready in 2012. Development of the reagents and methods has been funded by the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) programs of NIH and the USDA.