Efficient reductive amination process for enantioselective synthesis of L-phosphinothricin applying engineered glutamate dehydrogenase

The objective of this study was to identify and exploit a robust biocatalyst that can be applied in reductive amination for enantioselective synthesis of the competitive herbicide L-phosphinothricin. Applying a genome mining-based library construction strategy, eight NADPH-specific glutamate dehydrogenases (GluDHs) were identified for reductively aminating 2-oxo-4-[(hydroxy)(methyl)phosphinoyl]butyric acid (PPO) to L-phosphinothricin. Among them, the glutamate dehydrogenase cloned from Pseudomonas putida ( Pp GluDH) exhibited relatively high catalytic activity and favorable soluble expression. This enzyme was purified to homogeneity for further characterization. The specific activity of Pp GluDH was 296.1 U/g-protein, which is significantly higher than the reported value for a GluDH. To the best of our knowledge, there has not been any report on protein engineering of GluDH for PPO-oriented activity. Taking full advantage of the available information and the diverse characteristics of the enzymes in the enzyme library, Pp GluDH was engineered by site-directed mutation based on multiple sequence alignment. The mutant I170M, which had 2.1-fold enhanced activity, was successfully produced. When the I170M mutant was applied in the batch production of L-phosphinothricin, it showed markedly improved catalytic efficiency compared with the wild type enzyme. The conversion reached 99% (0.1 M PPO) with an L-phosphinothricin productivity of 1.35 g/h·L, which far surpassed the previously reported level. These results show that Pp GluDH I170M is a promising biocatalyst for highly enantioselective synthesis of L-phosphinothricin by reductive amination.