Fine Modulation of the Catalytic Properties of Rhizomucor miehei Lipase Driven by Different Immobilization Strategies for the Selective Hydrolysis of Fish Oil

Functional properties of each enzyme strictly depend on immobilization protocol used for linking enzyme and carrier. Different strategies were applied to prepare the immobilized derivatives of Rhizomucor miehei lipase (RML) and chemically aminated RML (NH2-RML). Both RML and NH2-RML forms were covalently immobilized on glyoxyl sepharose (Gx-RML and Gx-NH2-RML), glyoxyl sepharose dithiothreitol (Gx-DTT-RML and Gx-DTT-NH2-RML), activated sepharose with cyanogen bromide (CNBr-RML and CNBr-NH2-RML) and heterofunctional epoxy support partially modified with iminodiacetic acid (epoxy-IDA-RML and epoxy-IDA-NH2-RML). Immobilization varied from 11% up to 88% yields producing specific activities ranging from 0.5 up to 1.9 UI/mg. Great improvement in thermal stability for Gx-DTT-NH2-RML and epoxy-IDA-NH2-RML derivatives was obtained by retaining 49% and 37% of their initial activities at 70 °C, respectively. The regioselectivity of each derivative was also examined in hydrolysis of fish oil at three different conditions. All the derivatives were selective between cis-5,8,11,14,17-eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and cis-4,7,10,13,16,19-docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) in favor of EPA. The highest selectivity (32.9 folds) was observed for epoxy-IDA-NH2-RML derivative in the hydrolysis reaction performed at pH 5 and 4 °C. Recyclability study showed good capability of the immobilized biocatalysts to be used repeatedly, retaining 50–91% of their initial activities after five cycles of the reaction.