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Enzymes are fundamental to life and are used in many biotechnological processes. Therefore, enzymatic activity is an important parameter in many contexts. In favourable cases an enzymatic reaction can be directly followed with spectroscopy in the UV or visible spectral range. In these cases the substrate or product of an enzymatic reaction is coloured, like for the NAD+ / NADH system, or light is emitted in the course of the reaction, like in the reaction of luciferase with ATP and luciferin.In most cases, however, substrate and product cannot be distinguished in the UV or visible range of the spectrum and enzyme activity has to be determined indirectly.

For this, coloured or fluorescent substrate analogues have been developed or the enzymatic reaction of interest has to be coupled to auxiliary enzymatic reactions that can be followed in the UV or Dacomitinib visible spectral range. An example is the coupled enzyme assay for the measurement of ATPase activity. The assay couples ATP hydrolysis catalysed by the enzyme of interest to the oxidation of NADH via the auxiliary enzymes pyruvate kinase and lactate dehydrogenase.This ��state of the art�� Cilengitide of activity measurements implies that for a ��new�� enzymatic reaction an activity assay or a suitable substrate analogue has to be developed.

This is often time-consuming, the modification of the substrate may affect the activity and applying the activity assay can be cumbersome, slow and may be limited to specific experimental conditions required by the assay.

Therefore, in order to speed up the development of biotechnological processes and to save costs, techniques that monitor enzymatic reactions directly are highly desirable.Infrared spectroscopy can provide such a direct, ��on-line�� monitor of enzymatic reactions, because the spectrum depends on the structure and environment of a molecule. When a molecular structure is modified in an enzymatic reaction, the infrared spectrum is altered and changes in infrared absorption can be followed to monitor the progress of the reaction.