Immobilization of carbonic anhydrase by embedding and covalent coupling into nanocomposite hydrogel containing hydrotalcite

Poly(acrylic acid-co-acrylamide)/hydrotalcite (PAA-AAm/HT) nanocomposite hydrogels activated by N-hydroxysuccinimide (NHS) in the presence of N, N'-dicyclohexylcarbodiimide (DCC) were used to immobilize carbonic anhydrase (CA) by embedding and covalent coupling. Cryo Scanning Electron Microscope (CryoSEM) proved the presence of free water in the porous network structures of the swollen hydrogels. Fluorescence microscopy indicated the existence of the immobilized enzyme in the hydrogels. Compared with un-activated hydrogels, activated hydrogels could improve the amount of the immobilization of enzyme, and maximum enzyme loading is about 4.6 mg/g of support for the activated hydrogels. The porous embedding and multi-point covalent linkage between enzyme and hydrogels strengthened the secondary structure stability of enzyme and thus enhanced enzyme stability in the presence of organic solvent and at high temperature. The immobilized enzyme in the activated hydrogel with enhanced structural stability offers great potential as a method to stabilize enzyme for various applications.