We need a non-aqueous system for dissolving glucose. But, we found DMSO had a bad effect on the biocatalyzer-enyzme. Is there any other solvent for glucose can be used in biocatalysis?
Glucose is very hydrophilic and dissolves readily in water. If you can work with very low concentration of glucose in your system, it may be possible to look into other solvents with lower dielectric constants than water. Go through the list of various solvents (with decreasing dielectric constants) and look up for solubility of glucose.
You seem to be using enzyme(s), which generally speaking, work in aqueous medium. Despite the fact that some regions or pockets can be very hydrophobic but to maintain normal structure (and function), the medium should still be aqueous.
Seems like a tough situation... good luck!
Generally solvents which can act as strong Hydrogen-Bond-Accepting (HBA) bases exhibiting moderate to high dielectric constants are able to dissolve glucose (in general sugars). If DMSO cannot be used, then two other choices could be ethylene glycol and glycerol.
Additionally as also mentioned one could also reduce the concentration of glucose so that the water content could be minimized. This would help you if you alternatively decide to use binary solvent mixtures of the type: water/cosolvent. This way one could reduce water content as possible such as the enzyme would be still "happy". There are several papers providing polarity data for a series of water binary mixtures with organic solvents. One of them is the following:
"The Use of Chemical Probes for the Characterization of Solvent Mixtures. Part 2. Aqueous Mixtures" by Yizhak Marcus: J. Chem. Soc., Perkin Trans. 2, 1994, 1751-1758.
DOI: 10.1039/P29940001751
Good Luck!
Additionally if you are interested in the dependence of medium polarity of aqueous glucose (as well as glucose DMSO solutions) on glucose concentration, check the following paper: Liebigs Ann. Chem. 1993, 981 -985. (Investigations on the Polarity of Aqueous Solutions of Urea and Various Sugars by Means of the Solvatochromic Technique; DOI: 10.1002/jlac.1993199301156).
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