N-terminal truncation of prenyltransferase enhances the biosynthesis of prenylnaringenin.

Chaojie Guo; Song Gao; Hongbiao LI; Yunbin Lyu; Shiqin YU; Jingwen Zhou

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N-terminal truncation of prenyltransferase enhances the biosynthesis of prenylnaringenin.

Author: Chaojie GUO ¹ ; Song GAO ¹ ; Hongbiao LI ¹ ; Yunbin LYU ¹ ; Shiqin YU ¹ ; Jingwen ZHOU ¹
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1. Science Center for Future Foods, Jiangnan University, Wuxi 214122, Jiangsu, China.
Publication Type:Journal Article
Keywords: 8-prenylnaringenin; Saccharomyces cerevisiae; alanine scanning; molecular docking; saturated mutation
MeSH: Dimethylallyltranstransferase/metabolism*; Flavonoids/metabolism*; Molecular Docking Simulation; Prenylation; Saccharomyces cerevisiae/metabolism*; Sophora/metabolism*
From: Chinese Journal of Biotechnology 2022;38(4):1565-1575
CountryChina
Language:Chinese
Abstract: 8-prenylnaringenin (8-PN) is a potent estrogen with high medicinal values. It also serves as an important precursor for many prenylated flavonoids. Microbial synthesis of 8-PN is mainly hindered by the low catalytic activity of prenyltransferases (PTS) and insufficient supply of precursors. In this work, a SfN8DT-1 from Sophora flavescens was used to improve the efficiency of (2S)-naringenin prenylation. The predicted structure of SfN8DT-1 showed that its main body is comprised of 9 α-helices and 8 loops, along with a long side chain formed by nearly 120 amino acids. SfN8DT-1 mutants with different side-chain truncated were tested in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. A mutant expressing the truncated enzyme at K62 site, designated as SfND8T-1-t62, produced the highest 8-PN titer. Molecular docking of SfN8DT-1-t62 with (2S)-naringenin and dimethylallyl diphosphate (DMAPP) showed that K185 was a potentially crucial residue. Alanine scanning within a range of 0.5 nm around these two substrates showed that the mutant K185A may decrease its affinity to substrates, which also indicated K185 was a potentially critical residue. Besides, the mutant K185W enhanced the affinity to ligands implied by the simulated saturation mutation, while the saturated mutation of K185 showed a great decrease in 8-PN production, indicating K185 is vital for the activity of SfN8DT-1. Subsequently, overexpressing the key genes of Mevalonate (MVA) pathway further improved the titer of 8-PN to 31.31 mg/L, which indicated that DMAPP supply is also a limiting factor for 8-PN synthesis. Finally, 44.92 mg/L of 8-PN was produced in a 5 L bioreactor after 120 h, which is the highest 8-PN titer reported to date.