Enzyme engineering services
Improve catalytic activity, thermostability, or substrate specificity through computational assessment and systematic variant characterization coupled to high-throughput screening and directed evolution
Optimize your enzyme →What we optimize in enzyme engineering
Enzyme optimization is multi-objective. The challenge is improving one property without degrading others. Computational prediction and systematic variant screening provide the data to navigate these trade-offs rationally.
Catalytic activity
Improving kcat or kcat/Km through mutations in and around the active site. Computational assessment and targeted mutagenesis identify substitutions that enhance transition state stabilization, substrate positioning, or product release without compromising structural integrity.
Thermostability
Increasing melting temperature (Tm) and operational stability at elevated temperatures. AI-driven tools like ThermoMPNN and EvoGeoBuilder computationally predict stabilizing mutations before wet-lab validation. Critical for industrial enzymes that must function at process temperatures of 50-80 degrees C and for therapeutic enzymes that require long serum half-lives.
Substrate specificity
Tuning selectivity for non-natural substrates, improving enantioselectivity, or broadening substrate scope. Mutations in the substrate binding pocket and access tunnels reshape the active site geometry to accommodate new substrates.
Expression and solubility
Improving heterologous expression in E. coli, yeast, or mammalian production hosts. Surface display expression level serves as a proxy for soluble folded protein yield, enabling high-throughput screening for expressibility.
Computational, experimental, and evolutionary approaches for enzyme optimization
Computational stability engineering
ThermoMPNN and EvoGeoBuilder predict stabilizing mutations from structure alone, identifying positions where substitutions increase Tm without disrupting catalytic function. Computationally ranked variants are synthesized and validated experimentally.
This approach narrows the mutational search space before any wet-lab screening begins, reducing the number of variants that need to be built and tested.
Targeted mutagenesis and fitness mapping
Saturation or combinatorial mutagenesis across the enzyme, screened by display-coupled activity assays or stability selection. The complete fitness landscape reveals every beneficial mutation at every position. Beneficial single mutations are combined rationally rather than randomly.
Particularly valuable when specific regions (active site loops, substrate channels, surface patches) can be targeted for focused scanning.
Iterative mutagenesis and selection
Error-prone PCR or DNA shuffling libraries screened through iterative rounds of display or functional selection. Each round enriches improved variants, which serve as templates for the next round of diversification.
Preferred when the fitness landscape is unknown, when epistatic interactions are expected to be important, or when the selection assay captures a complex phenotype.
Enzyme engineering across industries
Therapeutic enzymes
Enzyme replacement therapies, antibody-drug conjugate payloads, and prodrug-activating enzymes. Optimization for serum stability, reduced immunogenicity, and improved pharmacokinetics.
Industrial biocatalysis
Process enzymes for chemical synthesis, food processing, and biofuel production. Thermostability, solvent tolerance, and activity at process pH are typical optimization targets.
Diagnostic enzymes
Reporter enzymes and signal-amplifying enzymes for diagnostic assays. Improved activity, stability at ambient storage temperatures, and performance in complex sample matrices.
Gene editing enzymes
Optimization of Cas nucleases, recombinases, transposases, and other genome engineering tools. Specificity, activity, and delivery-relevant properties (size, stability) are common targets.
Biosynthetic pathway enzymes
Improving flux through engineered metabolic pathways. Optimization of rate-limiting enzymes and elimination of substrate inhibition to increase titers in microbial production hosts.
Agricultural enzymes
Enzymes for crop protection, soil health, and animal feed applications. Environmental stability, broad temperature tolerance, and compatibility with formulation excipients.
Need a better enzyme?
Tell us about your enzyme, the property you want to improve, and the assay you use to measure it. We will design an optimization campaign.
Start a project →