(R)-3-Aminobutanol is a valuable chiral amino alcohol widely used in the pharmaceutical industry. The amine dehydrogenase (AmDH)-catalyzed synthesis with inorganic ammonia as the amine donor represents one of the most promising routes for its production. However, this approach is limited by the low catalytic efficiency of AmDHs toward the unnatural substrate 4-hydroxy-2-butanone, as well as the high cost associated with coenzyme requirements. To address these issues, a structure-guided engineering strategy integrating loop remodeling with dynamically coupled network analysis was employed to modify an AmDH derived from leucine dehydrogenase (GKGB-AmDH). A pentamutant was obtained with a 7.8-fold increase in catalytic efficiency (kcat/Km) and a 6.8-fold increase in specific activity. Molecular dynamics simulations were performed to elucidate the molecular mechanism underlying the improved catalytic performance. A dual-enzyme co-expression system for GKGB-AmDH-M5 and formate dehydrogenase (FDH) was established for in situ NADH regeneration. As a result, the catalytic efficiency toward 4-hydroxy-2-butanone was enhanced, and the conversion reached 83.8% at a substrate concentration of 300 mM, with an enantiomeric excess (e.e.) of > 99.99%. These results demonstrate the feasibility of this engineering strategy and provide a theoretical basis for the efficient and green biomanufacturing of chiral amino alcohols.
Teng‐Kun Huang, Cen Huang, Du Wu et al.· Biotechnology and Bioenginee...· 0 citations
d-Allulose is a valuable low-calorie rare sugar with diverse physiological benefits. Although phosphorylation-dephosphorylation-based multi-enzyme cascades enable efficient d-allulose biosynthesis, the free-enzyme format limits substrate channeling and promotes intermediate diffusion, resulting in byproduct accumulation and reduced cascade efficiency. In this study, peptide-mediated assembly strategies were employed to construct a dual-enzyme complex using d-allulose 6-phosphate epimerase (A6PE) and d-allulose 6-phosphate phosphatase (A6PP) as model enzymes, to mitigate reversible epimerization. Among them, the ReverseTag/ReverseCatcher system was selected due to its positive impact on enzyme activity, as evidenced by the 2.1‑fold and 27.5% increases in activity observed for RCA6PE and RTA6PP, respectively. Successful complex assembly was confirmed by dynamic light scattering and transmission electron microscopy. A five-enzyme complex (RFE) was further constructed by integrating α-glucan phosphorylase, phosphoglucomutase, phosphoglucose isomerase, A6PE, and A6PP to spatially organize an artificial in vitro d-allulose biosynthetic pathway. With 10 g/L maltodextrin as the substrate, the RFE system achieved a d-allulose yield of 63.1%, representing a 37.2% increase over the free-enzyme system. These findings demonstrate that ReverseTag/ReverseCatcher-mediated covalent assembly improves multi-enzyme cascade efficiency and provides a modular platform for engineering artificial in vitro biosynthetic systems.
Zheming Wu, Yu Lu, Jin-Chao Zhang et al.· Biotechnology and Bioenginee...· 0 citations
