To beat the heat - engineering of the most thermostable pyruvate decarboxylase to date

Pyruvate decarboxylase (PDC) is a key enzyme for the production of ethanol at high temperatures and for cell-free butanol synthesis. Thermostable, organic solvent stable PDC was evolved from bacterial PDCs. The new variant shows >1500-fold-improved half-life at 75 °C and >5000-fold-increased half-life in the presence of 9 vol% butanol at 50 °C.