Microbial Anchoring Systems for Cell-Surface Display of Lipolytic Enzymes

Studies of microbial cell envelopes and particularly cell surface proteins and mechanisms of their localization brought about new biotechnological applications of the gained knowledge in surface display of homologous and heterologous proteins. By fusing surface proteins or their anchoring domains with different proteins of interest, their so-called genetic immobilization is achieved. Hybrid proteins are engineered in a way that they are expressed in the host cells, secreted to the cell surface and incorporated into the wall/envelope moiety In this way, laborious and often detrimental procedure of chemical immobilization of the protein is avoided by letting the cells do the whole procedure. Both bacterial and yeast cells have been used for this purpose and a number of potential biotechnological applications of surface-displayed proteins have been reported. Among the most frequently used passenger proteins are lipolytic enzymes, due to their great technological significance and numerous important applications. In this review, our current knowledge on mechanisms and molecular systems for surface display of lipolytic enzymes on bacterial and yeast cell surfaces is summarized.