D -Amino acid oxidase (DAAO) selectively catalyzes the oxidative deamination of D -amino acids, making it one of the most promising routes for synthesizing optically pure L -amino acids, including L -phosphinothricin ( L -PPT), a chiral herbicide with significant market potential. However, the native DAAOs that have been reported have low activity against unnatural acid substrate D -PPT. Herein, we designed and screened a DAAO from Rhodotorula taiwanensis ( Rtw DAAO), and improved its catalytic potential toward D -PPT through protein engineering. A semirational design approach was employed to create a mutation library based on the tunnel-pocket engineering. After three rounds of iterative saturation mutagenesis, the optimal variant M 3rd -SHVG was obtained, exhibiting a >2000-fold increase in relative activity. The kinetic parameters showed that M 3rd -SHVG improved the substrate binding affinity and turnover number. This is the optimal parameter reported so far. Further, molecular dynamics simulation revealed that the M 3rd -SHVG reshapes the tunnel-pocket and corrects the direction of enzyme–substrate binding, allowing efficiently catalyze unnatural substrates. Our strategy demonstrates that the redesign of tunnel-pockets is effective in improving the activity and kinetic efficiency of DAAO, which provides a valuable reference for enzymatic catalysis. With the M 3rd -SHVG as biocatalyst, 500 mM D, L -PPT was completely converted and the yield reached 98%. The results laid the foundation for further industrial production.
Chiral amino acids are extensively applied in the pharmaceutical, food, cosmetic, and agricultural industries. As a representative example, l -phosphinothricin ( l -PPT, a chiral non-natural amino acid) is a broad-spectrum herbicide. An NAD(H)-driven biocatalytic system for the asymmetric synthesis of chiral amino acids (focused on l -PPT) with high efficiency and low cost is highly desired. The key for the development of such biocatalytic system is to obtain an NADH-dependent biocatalyst with high catalytic performance toward l -PPT pro-ketone PPO. Herein, an engineered glutamate dehydrogenase from Lysinibacillus composti ( Lc GluDH) with desired activity was obtained by gene mining and protein engineering. In silico analyses suggested that the volume of substrate-binding pocket was substantially enlarged from 330.5 Å 3 to 409.6 Å 3 . The stability of Lc GluDH was increased ( T m value increased from 47.3 °C to 65.3 °C) by introducing positively charged amino acids or aromatic amino acids at position 375. The desired biocatalytic system was constructed by coupling the engineered Lc GluDH and an NAD + -dependent FDH. Through this biocatalytic system, the batch production of l -PPT exhibited high space-time yield (207.3 g ⋅ L −1 ⋅ day −1 ) with strict stereoselectivity ( ee of l -PPT>99%). Furthermore, eight other chiral amino acids were synthesised by the developed NAD(H)-driven biocatalytic system with high ee values.
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