Immobilization of Arthrobacter simplex in a thermally reversible hydrogel: Effect of temperature cycling on steroid conversion

Arthrobacter simplex cells, which convert the steroid hydrocortisone to prednisolone, have been entrapped in a thermally reversible hydrogel. Such hydrogels exhibit a lower critical solution temperature (LCST) wherein the gel shrinks and deswells when it is warmed through its LCST, and then reversibly expands and reswells when it is cooled below the LCST. The immobilized cell‐hydrogel system has been thermally cycled between two temperatures, each below the LCST. The upper temperature was selected to be just below the LCST, where the gel deswells but does not collapse, as it does at the LCST. The thermal cycling acts like a “hydraulic pump” which enhances mass transfer of the substrate (hydrocortisone) in and the product (prednisolone) out of the gel, thereby increasing steroid conversion dramatically relative to isothermal operation at either the upper or lower temperature. The increased conversion can also be due in part to reduced product inhibition. Mass transfer resistance and product inhibition are among the most serious problems in immobilized biocatalyst technology and thermal cycling of LCST hydrogels is both a novel and useful approach to minimizing these problems.