The Kamchatka Peninsula, located in far northeast Russia, is one of the world’s most pristine and diverse natural environments. Populated with an abundance of active and extinct volcanoes, snow covered mountains, and green alpine meadows, Kamchatka is a hotbed of biodiversity. It is from within its geyser valleys that Verenium discovered the gene that lead to the development of two of our industrial enzyme products, Luminase™ PB-100 and Luminase™ PB-200 enzymes.
Verenium’s discovery process begins with the identification of a market need that can be addressed with a new or next-generation enzymatic process. In the case of the Luminase™ enzymes, it was the need for improved processing of wood pulp in the manufacturing of paper goods. Market research indicated that a novel xylanase enzyme that functioned well at high pH and high temperature could improve the process of pulp bleaching while reducing the need for harsh chemicals. To find such an enzyme, Verenium screened its vast collection of microbial genes for a novel enzyme that functioned under high pH and temperature conditions.
Verenium identified an enzyme that met the stringent selection criteria for effective biobleaching from an environmental sample collected from an alkaline hot spring in the volcanic Uzon Caldera in Kamchatka, Russia. This xylanase enzyme, now part of the Luminase™ brand of enzymes, effectively hydrolyzes the hemicellulose which is associated with the brown color of raw pulp and permits a reduction of up to 28% of chlorine dioxide usage during the chemical bleaching step. Using Luminase™ enzymes, pulp and paper mills can bleach pulp at a reduced cost while improving the environment through decreased use and disposal of harsh chemicals.
The power of Verenium’s discovery platform is demonstrated by the fact that it took only 30 months from sample collection to commercialization of the first of the Luminase™ enzymes.
