Biological resources from the Arctic hold the potential for development of sustainable products and/or processes within areas such as pharma, agriculture, and biotech. Here, we present the identification of cold-active enzymes and biocontrol agents isolated from cold-adapted bacteria.
Truly cold-active enzymes are not yet on the market. It is possible, though, to find truly cold-active enzymes with industrial potential. We have characterized a β-galactosidase which has a temperature optimum at 20 °C, but still maintains 60% of its activity at 0 °C (Schmidt et al. 2010). The β-galactosidase is able to hydrolyze lactose and form prebiotic galactooligosaccharides (GOS) in milk. We have furthermore isolated several biocontrol strains from Greenlandic potato soils. One of these strains, Pseudomonas sp. In5, possesses strong antifungal activity, and it has been shown to produce at least two antimicrobial non-ribosomal peptides (NRPs), which furthermore recently have been shown to have anticancer activity (Michelsen et al. 2015).