Enginyeria de quitinases de la família GH18 per a l’obtenció de polímers de quitosà amb seqüències definides

Chitinases are glycoside hydrolases (GH) that catalyse the hydrolysis of β(1→4) glycosidic bonds of chitin and chi-tosan polymers. Some chitinases also have transglycosylase activity, allowing them to introduce new glycosidic bonds between donor and acceptor sugar molecules with the consequent generation of chitin-oligosaccharides (COS), which may be useful for a range of biological applications. Chitinases are used as a synthetic tool to obtain well-defined COS. We propose here the application of glycosynthase technology on GH18 chitinases. Protein engineering is used to increase the transglycosylation activity while concomitantly decreasing the hydrolysis activity.