Page 42 - Advances in Textile Biotechnology

Design and engineering of novel enzymes for textile applications 21

costly screening in combination with an often narrow substrate spectrum
of enzymes can delay the rapid development of biocatalysis.
Over the past few decades, several enzymes have been identifi ed and
optimized, by either method, as catalysts for some textile industrial applica-
tions. Nevertheless, one major overall limitation for the application of enzy-
matic processes in the textile industry is that the public recognition of its

benefits is not widespread even in developed countries. It is very important
to provide information about the urgent need to reduce the use of chemi-
cals in the textile industry to preserve environmental quality and protect
biodiversity, thus also bringing economic advantages. In addition, publicly
funded research bodies in developing countries need to intensify efforts to
develop enzyme-based technologies of their own.

1.6 Future trends

Over the past few years, enzymes were studied and used in order to develop
environmentally friendly alternative processes for almost all steps in textile

fibres processing. For this reason, we have witnessed great progress in the
application of enzyme engineering for the production of suitable biocata-
lysts for these processes. There are already some commercially successful
applications, such as amylases used for desizing, cellulases and laccases for
denim finishing, and proteases incorporated in detergent formulations.

Although some types of enzymes already play an important role in some
textile processes, their potential is much greater and their applications in
future processes are likely to increase in the near future. Much work remains
to be done to improve productivity and efficiency to a point at which these

technologies will be as economically advantageous as the conventional
approaches.
Further research is still required for the implementation of commercial
enzyme-based processes for the biomodification of synthetic and natural

fi bers. Another field of research is the search for new enzyme-producing

micro-organisms and enzymes extracted from extremophilic micro-
organisms (Schumacher et al., 2001). Furthermore, the availability of more
genomes and their better understanding will open new doors to better
engineer industrial host strains and will certainly contribute to overcoming
the disadvantages and limitations. New approaches are needed to better
understand the metabolism and growth of host organisms. Genome-wide
transcription profiling, proteomics and the elucidation of the complete

metabolic networks will provide important understanding of cellular pro-
cesses of organisms of industrial interest. In consequence, the classical
biotechnology approaches that focus on the design and improvements of
individual genes or proteins will be expanded by global approaches, all
aiming at the understanding of the interaction of the complete set of

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