Fabrication of a nano-biocatalyst for regioselective acylation of arbutin

ABSTRACTA nano-biocatalyst has been successfully prepared via coordination between zinc ion and the nitrogen atoms of the amide groups in the Candida sp. 99-125 lipase. The as-prepared nanoparticle has an excellent hierarchical structure with a large number of separate petals. In regioselective acylation of arbutin, the nano-biocatalyst showed enhanced enzyme activities to about 4.3-folds than the free enzyme. Meanwhile, the prepared nano-biocatalyst exhibited good operational reusability and only about 6% of enzyme activity has lost during 10 continuous reaction-recycles.