The vanillyl-alcohol oxidase (VAO) family is a rich source of biocatalysts for the oxidative bioconversion of phenolic compounds. Through genome mining and sequence comparisons, we found that several family members lack a generally conserved catalytic aspartate. This finding led us to study a VAO-homolog featuring a glutamate residue in place of the common aspartate. This 4-ethylphenol oxidase from Gulosibacter chungangensis (Gc4EO) shares 42 % sequence identity with VAO from Penicillium simplicissimum, contains the same 8α-N3-histidyl-bound FAD and uses oxygen as electron acceptor. However, Gc4EO features a distinct substrate scope and product specificity as it is primarily effective in the dehydrogenation of para-substituted phenols with little generation of hydroxylated products. The three-dimensional structure shows that the characteristic glutamate side chain creates a closely packed environment that may limit water accessibility and thereby protect from hydroxylation. With its high thermal stability, well defined structural properties and high expression yields, Gc4EO may become a catalyst of choice for the specific dehydrogenation of phenolic compounds bearing small substituents. 相似文献
Protein engineering has been used to enhance the activities, selectivities, and stabilities of enzymes. Frequently tradeoffs are observed, where improvements in some features can come at the expense of others. Nature uses modular assembly of active sites for complex, multi-step reactions, and natural “swing arm” mechanisms have evolved to transfer intermediates between active sites. Biomimetic polyethylene glycol (PEG) swing arms modified with NAD(H) have been explored to introduce synthetic swing arms into fused oxidoreductases. Here we report that increasing NAD(H)-PEG swing arms can improve the activity of synthetic formate:malate oxidoreductases as well as the thermal and operational stabilities of the biocatalysts. The modular assembly approach enables the KM values of new enzymes to be predictable, based on the parental enzymes. We describe four unique synthetic transhydrogenases that have no native homologs, and this platform could be easily extended for the predictive design of additional synthetic cofactor-independent transhydrogenases. 相似文献
Amine dehydrogenases (AmDHs) catalyze the enzymatic reduction of ketones to amines, serving as a suitable biocatalytic route for amine synthesis. A limited number of experimentally validated native AmDHs (nat‐AmDHs) have been reported recently, expanding the sequences with this function to complement the small set of engineered enzymes. Since researchers can now probe into the vast diversity of enzymes within niche environments by a metagenomics approach, a tandem metagenomic and bioinformatic approach is a powerful tool to identify new members of limited enzyme families to access new features in an iterative fashion. The previously untapped biocatalytic reservoirs of the ocean environment and human microbiome were screened for potential AmDHs using a hidden Markov model. Among the hundreds of hits, a subset of 18 enzymes was selected for further characterization and were confirmed to display AmDH activity. Additional analysis on six enzymes confirmed altered cofactor specificities and variation in substrate scopes, catalytic efficiencies, and active site residues compared to the reference nat‐AmDHs previously described. Particularly, MATOUAmDH2 from an eukaryotic organism demonstrated specific activity of 11.07 and 0.88 U mg−1 toward isobutyraldehyde and 1,2‐cyclohexadione respectively. Their abundance among the screened environments was also described. The protein sequence diversity of validated AmDHs reached by this metagenomics mining strategy highlights the success of such an approach. Metagenomically mined proteins, including eukaryotic ones, stand to increase the reach of biocatalysis towards enviromentally benign processes.
Protein bioinformatics has been applied to a myriad of opportunities in biocatalysis from enzyme engineering to enzyme discovery, but its application in enzyme immobilization is still very limited. Enzyme immobilization brings clear advantages in terms of sustainability and cost-efficiency but is still limited in its implementation. This, because it is a technique that remains tied to a quasi-blind protocol of trial and error, and therefore, is regarded as a time-intensive and costly approach. Here, we present the use of a set of bioinformatic tools to rationalize the results of protein immobilization that have been previously described. The study of proteins with these new tools allows the discovery of key driving forces in the process of immobilization that explain the obtained results, moving us a step closer to the final goal: predictive enzyme immobilization protocols. 相似文献
Baeyer–Villiger monooxygenases (BVMOs) are remarkable biocatalysts, but, due to their low stability, their application in industry is hampered. Thus, there is a high demand to expand on the diversity and increase the stability of this class of enzyme. Starting from a known thermostable BVMO sequence from Thermocrispum municipale (TmCHMO), a novel BVMO from Amycolaptosis thermoflava (BVMOFlava), which was successfully expressed in Escherichia coli BL21(DE3), was identified. The activity and stability of the purified enzyme was investigated and the substrate profile for structurally different cyclohexanones and cyclobutanones was assigned. The enzyme showed a lower activity than that of cyclohexanone monooxygenase (CHMOAcineto) from Acinetobacter sp., as the prototype BVMO, but indicated higher kinetic stability by showing a twofold longer half-life at 30 °C. The thermodynamic stability, as represented by the melting temperature, resulted in a Tm value of 53.1 °C for BVMOFlava, which was comparable to the Tm of TmCHMO (ΔTm=1 °C) and significantly higher than the Tm value for CHMOAcineto ((ΔTm=14.6 °C)). A strong deviation between the thermodynamic and kinetic stabilities of BVMOFlava was observed; this might have a major impact on future enzyme discovery for BVMOs and their synthetic applications. 相似文献
Stability and catalytic activity of various plant and fungal peroxidases (HRP-like peroxidases, lignin peroxidases, manganese peroxidases) and multicopper mono- and/or poly-phenol oxidases (tyrosinases, catechol oxidases and laccases) in media of controlled water content and/or thermodynamic activity are discussed. Perspectives of extending these results onto practical applications are also outlined. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date. 相似文献
