E. Cernia et al., THE ROLE OF THE REACTION MEDIUM IN LIPASE-CATALYZED ESTERIFICATIONS AND TRANSESTERIFICATIONS, Chemistry and physics of lipids, 93(1-2), 1998, pp. 157-168
The nature of the reaction medium (different organic solvents and supe
rcritical fluids) markedly influenced the microbial lipase activity in
esterification and transesterification reactions employing as substra
tes natural and synthetic compounds in terms of reaction rates and lip
ase enantioselectivity. The experimental data obtained show that while
there are no substantial correlations between enantioselectivity and
some physicochemical characteristics of the solvent as hydrophobicity
and dielectric constant, the solvent polarity and hydrophobicity is ab
le to modulate greatly lipase activity. The possible effects of the so
lvent characteristics on the catalytic performance of the enzymes are
discussed and a rationale is proposed to explain the results obtained.
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