Protein engineering has become the most important tool for enabling
industrial application of biocatalysts. Advances in structure-guided methods and novel
techniques for directed evolution and high-throughput screening have facilitated the
design of enzymes with improved properties such as functional expression, stability,
and catalytic activity. The utilization of lignocellulosic biomass for biofuels production
is attractive because it is environmentally sustainable. However, commercialization of
biomass biofuels requires efficient bioconversion of cellulosic material to sugar, which
is largely hampered by biomass recalcitrance. In this chapter, we present the recent
application of protein engineering techniques for maximizing the efficiencies of
biocatalysts for biofuel production.
Keywords: Protein engineering, enzyme adaptation, semi-rational design, library
construction, site-directed mutagenesis, screening, biomass.
