Novel Applications of Peroxidase

The article entitled "Novel Biocatalysts Will Work Even Better for Industry" published recently in this Journal (1) was informative and interesting. However it touched only briefly on the application of peroxidase as catalyst. Here, we would like to mention in more detail the novel applications of peroxidase in agricultural, paper pulp, water treatment, pharmaceutical, and medical situations. Firstly, the peroxidase isolated from Phanerochaete chyrosporium has been shown to detoxify herbicides such as atrazine to less toxic compounds and would certainly find potential application in agriculture (2). Secondly, the peroxidase produced by Streptomyces thermoviolaceus may find application in the paper pulp industry as a delignifying agent (3). Thirdly, it has been shown that extracellular peroxidase produced by Streptomyces avermitilis can remove the intense color from paper-mill effluent obtained after semichemical alkaline pulping of wheat straw (4), and thus this enzyme might find application as a catalyst in water treatment plants. Fourthly, the heme-containing horseradish peroxidase enzyme has been exploited in several diagnostic applications in pharmaceutics and medicine, such as the detection of human immunodeficiency virus and cystic fibrosis (5­10). Finally, recent work from our laboratory has suggested that thermophilic nonheme peroxidase produced by Thermomonospora fusca BD25 may find medical use in the diagnosis of myocardial infarction (11, 12).