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Kinetic productivity analysis is critical to the characterization of enzyme catalytic performance and capacity. However, productivity analysis has been largely overlooked in the published literature. Less than 0.01% of studies which report on enzyme characterization present productivity analysis, despite the fact that this is the only measurement method that provides a reliable indicator of potential commercial utility. Here, we argue that reporting productivity data involving native, modified, and immobilized enzymes under different reaction conditions will be of immense value in optimizing enzymatic processes, with a view to accelerating biotechnological applications. With the use of examples from wide-ranging studies, we demonstrate that productivity is a measure of critical importance to the translational and commercial use of enzymes and processes that employ them. We conclude the review by suggesting steps to maximize the productivity of enzyme catalyzed reactions.

The bulk of the Earth's biosphere is cold (e.g. 90% of the ocean's waters are ≤ 5°C), sustaining a broad diversity of microbial life. The permanently cold environments vary from the deep ocean to alpine reaches and to polar regions. Commensurate with the extent and diversity of the ecosystems that harbour psychrophilic life, the functional capacity of the microorganisms that inhabitat the cold biosphere are equally diverse. As a result, indigenous psychrophilic microorganisms provide an enormous natural resource of enzymes that function effectively in the cold, and these cold-adapted enzymes have been targeted for their biotechnological potential. In this review we describe the main properties of enzymes from psychrophiles and describe some of their known biotechnological applications and ways to potentially improve their value for biotechnology. The review also covers the use of metagenomics for enzyme screening, the development of psychrophilic gene expression systems and the use of enzymes for cleaning., (© 2011 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2011 Society for Applied Microbiology and Blackwell Publishing Ltd.)