Inhibitors of Laccases: A Review

Laccases are an interesting group of multicopper enzymes, which have received much attention of researchers in last decades due to their ability to oxidise both phenolic and non-phenolic lignin-related compounds as well as highly recalcitrant environmental pollutants. This makes these biocatalysts very useful for their application to several biotechnological processes. Soil and water contamination is often accompanied by several organic and inorganic compounds. Therefore, it is important to know the stability of laccases under the conditions present in such environments, since it can influence the effectiveness of the bioremediation technologies. Recently, the utility of laccases has also been applied to Nanobiotechnology. This is an increasing research field mainly due to the fact that laccases are able to catalyse electron transfer reactions without additional cofactors and to the development of several techniques for the immobilisation of biomolecules such as micropatterning, self-assembled monolayers and layer-by-layer technique. These techniques can be used to immobilise laccases preserving their enzymatic activity. This paper reviews the effect of the potential laccase inhibitors that can be found in polluted environments on laccase activity.