Stabilization of Enzymes via Covalent Tethering to Appropriately Tuned Random Copolymer Brushes

Immobilizing enzymes can often cause their inactivation due to enzyme-support interactions and changes in the enzyme's microenvironment. As such, the design of novel supports remains largely empirical, and a rational approach may avoid time-consuming and tedious experiments. This chapter describes a method for stabilizing enzymes via immobilization on heterogeneous polymer brush supports. By varying the composition of the brush, the enzyme-brush interface may be finely tuned to prevent enzyme unfolding and rescue denatured enzymes via a chaperone-like mechanism. The design of polymer brush supports with appropriately tuned compositions may be informed by the quantification of protein surface hydrophobicity using the hi-patch algorithm.