The textile industry presents well succeed examples of
enzyme applications on the processing of natural fi
bres. The design of
hybrid enzymes mimics the strategies that Nature uses to evolve and it
is a powerful tool in biotechnology. The production and application of
the cutinase fused to carbohydrate
-
binding modules (CBMs) has
provided strong evidences of bei
ng an interesting strategy to pursuit.
The CBMs act synergistically with the catalytic domains by increasing
the effective enzyme concentration at the substrate surface and, for
some CBMs, by physical disruption of the solid substrate. Future work
is neede
d to improve the recombinant production of modular cutinases
and to study in detail their affinities toward the cellulose substrates
