As the chip of synthetic biology, enzymes play a vital role in the bio-manufacturing industry. The development of diverse functional enzymes can provide a rich toolbox for the development of synthetic biology. This article reports the construction of an artificial enzyme with the introduction of a non-natural cofactor. By introducing the 4-dimethylaminopyridine (DMAP) cofactor into the optimal protein skeleton via covalent bonds based on a click-chemistry strategy, we successfully constructed a novel artificial enzyme with the DMAP cofactor as the catalytic center. The artificial enzyme successfully catalyzed an unnatural asymmetric Morita-Baylis- Hillman (MBH) reaction between cycloketenone and p-nitrobenzaldehyde, with a conversion rate of 90% and enantioselectivity (e.e.) of 38%. This study not only provides an effective strategy for the design of new artificial enzymes but also establishes a theoretical basis for the development of unnatural biocatalytic MBH reactions.
Biocatalysis ; 4-Aminopyridine/chemistry* ; Enzymes/metabolism* ; Coenzymes/chemistry* ; Benzaldehydes/chemistry* ; Protein Engineering/methods* ; Click Chemistry

The xylose reductase of Pichia stipitis is one of the most important enzymes. It can be used to build up recombinant Saccharomyces cerevisiae strain for utilizing xylose and producing ethanol. Intercellular redox imbalance caused by NADPH preference over NADH for Pichia stipitis xylose reductase (PsXR) has been considered to be one of the main factors for poor ethanol productivity. Some key amino acids of PsXR, which affect the activity or coenzyme preference, were investigated in our previous study. In this study, Lys21 were rational designed for site-directed mutagenesis to alter coenzyme specificity of PsXR from NADPH and NADH into single NADH. The wild gene and mutagenesis genes were ligated into pET28b, and were transferred into E.coli BL21(DE3). After induced by IPTG, the xylose reductases were purified. Purified mutants K21A (Lys21-->Ala), K21R(Lys21-->Arg) were characterized by steady-state kinetic analysis. The results showed that the coenzyme dependence of K21A was completely reversed to NADH.
Aldehyde Reductase ; metabolism ; Amino Acid Substitution ; genetics ; Coenzymes ; pharmacology ; Escherichia coli ; genetics ; metabolism ; Ethanol ; pharmacology ; Lysine ; genetics ; Mutagenesis, Site-Directed ; NAD ; metabolism ; NADP ; metabolism ; Pichia ; chemistry ; genetics ; metabolism ; Recombinant Proteins ; biosynthesis ; genetics ; metabolism ; Recombination, Genetic ; Xylose ; pharmacology

Types of cofactor independency for newly found oxidoreductases sequences are usually determined by experimental analysis. These experimental methods are both time-consuming and costly. With the explosion of oxidoreductases sequences entering into the databanks, it is highly desirable to explore the feasibility of selectively classifying newly found oxidoreductases into their respective cofactor independency classes by means of an automated method. In this study, we proposed a modified Chou's pseudo-amino acid composition method to extract features from sequences and the k-nearest neighbor was used as the classifier, and the results were very encouraging. When lambda = 48, w = 0.1, the areas under the ROC curve of k-nearest neighbor in 10-fold cross-validation was 0.9536; and the success rate was 92.0%, which was 3.5% higher than that of pseudo-amino acid composition. It was also better than all the other 7 feature extraction methods. Our results showed that predicting the cofactors of oxidoreductases was feasible and the modified pseudo-amino acid composition method may be a useful method for extracting features from protein sequences.
Amino Acid Motifs ; Amino Acids ; analysis ; Coenzymes ; chemistry ; Computational Biology ; Models, Chemical ; Oxidoreductases ; chemistry ; Predictive Value of Tests

AIMTo investigate the inclusion of coenzyme Q10 with beta-cyclodextrin (beta-CD).

METHODSThe inclusion of the electroactive guest molecule coenzyme Q10 with the host molecule beta-CD was studied by the polarography. The change of the reduction peak current of the inclusion complex with time and the change of the peak potential of the inclusion complex with beta-CD concentration were examined. In order to study the photostability, the change of the reduction peak current of both coenzyme Q10 and coenzyme Q10-beta-CD inclusion complex with time were also examined under light, separately.

RESULTSIn 0.1 mol x L(-1) HAc/NaAc (pH 4.7) buffer-ethanol/water (60:40) medium, coenzyme Q10 was included with p-CD to form an 1:1 inclusion complex. The formation constant Kf was 1.26 x 10(4) L x mol(-1) the apparent formation rate constant was 6.64 x 10(-2) min(-1). The photodegradation apparent rate constant of coenzyme Q10 as 7.77 x 10(-3) min(-1) and that of the coenzyme Q10-beta-CD inclusion complex was 3.38 x 10(-3) min(-1).

CONCLUSIONThe inclusion of coenzyme Q10 with beta-CD took place. The stability of coenzyme Q10 to lights was improved in a certain degree due to the formation of the inclusion complex.

Coenzymes ; chemistry ; Drug Compounding ; methods ; Light ; Oxidation-Reduction ; radiation effects ; Polarography ; methods ; Ubiquinone ; analogs & derivatives ; chemistry ; beta-Cyclodextrins ; chemistry