Greatly enhancing the enantioselectivity of PvEH2, a Phaseolus vulgaris epoxide hydrolase, towards racemic 1,2-epoxyhexane via replacing its partial cap-loop

Efficient and easible biocatalysts: Strategies for enzyme improvement. A review

Owing to the environmental friendliness and vast advantages that enzymes offer in the biotechnology and industry fields, biocatalysts are a prolific investigation field. However, the low catalytic activity, stability, and specific selectivity of the enzyme limit the range of the reaction enzymes involved in. A comprehensive understanding of the protein structure and dynamics in terms of molecular details enables us to tackle these limitations effectively and enhance the catalytic activity by enzyme engineering or modifying the supports and solvents. Along with different strategies including computational, enzyme engineering based on DNA recombination, enzyme immobilization, additives, chemical modification, and physicochemical modification approaches can be promising for the wide spread of industrial enzyme usage. This is attributed to the successful application of biocatalysts in industrial and synthetic processes requires a system that exhibits stability, activity, and reusability in a continuous flow process, thereby reducing the production cost. The main goal of this review is to display relevant approaches for improving enzyme characteristics to overcome their industrial application.

Structure of epoxide hydrolase 2 from Mangifera indica throws light on the substrate specificity determinants of plant epoxide hydrolases

Epoxide hydrolases (EHs) are a group of ubiquitous enzymes that catalyze hydrolysis of chemically reactive epoxides to yield corresponding dihydrodiols. Despite extensive studies on EHs from different clades, generic rules governing their substrate specificity determinants have remained elusive. Here, we present structural, biochemical and molecular dynamics simulation studies on MiEH2, a plant epoxide hydrolase from Mangifera indica. Comparative structure-function analysis of nine homologs of MiEH2, which include a few AlphaFold structural models, show that the two conserved tyrosines (MiEH2Y152 and MiEH2Y232) from the lid domain dissect substrate binding tunnel into two halves, forming substrate-binding-pocket one (BP1) and two (BP2). This compartmentalization offers diverse binding modes to their substrates, as exemplified by the binding of smaller aromatic substrates, such as styrene oxide (SO). Docking and molecular dynamics simulations reveal that the linear epoxy fatty acid substrates predominantly occupy BP1, while the aromatic substrates can bind to either BP1 or BP2. Furthermore, SO preferentially binds to BP2, by stacking against catalytically important histidine (MiEH2H297) with the conserved lid tyrosines engaging its epoxide oxygen. Residue (MiEH2L263) next to the catalytic aspartate (MiEH2D262) modulates substrate binding modes. Thus, the divergent binding modes correlate with the differential affinities of the EHs for their substrates. Furthermore, long-range dynamical coupling between the lid and core domains critically influences substrate enantioselectivity in plant EHs.

Chemoenzymatic Asymmetric Synthesis of Chiral Triazole Fungicide (R)-Tebuconazole in High Optical Purity Mediated by an Epoxide Hydrolase from Rhodotorula paludigensis

Tebuconazole is a chiral triazole fungicide used globally in agriculture as a racemic mixture, but its enantiomers exhibit significant enantioselective dissimilarities in bioactivity and environmental behaviors. The steric hindrance caused by the tert-butyl group makes it a great challenge to synthesize tebuconazole enantiomers. Here, we designed a simple chemoenzymatic approach for the asymmetric synthesis of (R)-tebuconazole, which includes the biocatalytic resolution of racemic epoxy-precursor (2-tert-butyl-2-[2-(4-chlorophenyl)ethyl] oxirane, rac-1a) by Escherichia coli/Rpeh whole cells expressed epoxide hydrolase from Rhodotorula paludigensis (RpEH), followed by a one-step chemocatalytic synthesis of (R)-tebuconazole. It was observed that (S)-1a was preferentially hydrolyzed by E. coli/Rpeh, whereas (R)-1a was retained with a specific activity of 103.8 U/g wet cells and a moderate enantiomeric ratio (E value) of 13.4, which was remarkably improved to 43.8 after optimizing the reaction conditions. Additionally, a gram-scale resolution of 200 mM rac-1a was performed using 150 mg/mL E. coli/Rpeh wet cells, resulting in the retention of (R)-1a in a 97.0% ees, a 42.5% yields, and a 40.5 g/L/d space-time yield. Subsequently, the synthesis of highly optical purity (R)-tebuconazole (>99% ee) was easily achieved through the chemocatalytic ring-opening of the epoxy-precursor (R)-1a with 1,2,4-triazole. To elucidate insight into the enantioselectivity, molecular docking simulations revealed that the unique L-shaped substrate-binding pocket of RpEH plays a crucial role in the enantioselective recognition of bulky 2,2-disubstituted oxirane 1a.

Enantioconvergent hydrolysis of racemic 1,2-epoxypentane and 1,2-epoxyhexane by an engineered Escherichia coli strain overexpressing a novel Streptomyces fradiae epoxide hydrolase

In order to excavate microbial epoxide hydrolases (EHs) with desired catalytic properties, a novel EH, SfEH1, was identified based on the genome annotation of Streptomyces fradiae and sequence alignment analysis with local protein library. The SfEH1-encoding gene, sfeh1, was then cloned and over-expressed in soluble form in Escherichia coli/BL21(DE3). The optimal temperature and pH of recombinant SfEH1 (reSfEH1) and reSfEH1-expressing E. coli (E. coli/sfeh1) were both determined as 30 ℃ and 7.0, also indicating that the influences of temperature and pH on reSfEH1's activities were more obvious than those of E. coli/sfeh1 whole cells. Subsequently, using E. coli/sfeh1 as catalyst, its catalytic properties towards thirteen common mono-substituted epoxides were tested, in which E. coli/sfeh1 had the highest activity of 28.5 U/g dry cells for rac-1,2-epoxyoctane (rac-6a), and (R)-1,2-pentanediol ((R)-3b) (or (R)-1,2-hexanediol ((R)-4b)) with up to 92.5% (or 94.1%) ee_p was obtained at almost 100% conversion ratio. Regioselectivity coefficients (α_S and β_R) displayed in the enantioconvergent hydrolysis of rac-3a (or rac-4a) were calculated to be 98.7% and 93.8% (or 95.2% and 98.9%). Finally, the reason of the high and complementary regioselectivity was confirmed by both kinetic parameter analysis and molecular docking simulations.

Rational design of enzyme activity and enantioselectivity

The strategy of rational design to engineer enzymes is to predict the potential mutants based on the understanding of the relationships between protein structure and function, and subsequently introduce the mutations using the site-directed mutagenesis. Rational design methods are universal, relatively fast and have the potential to be developed into algorithms that can quantitatively predict the performance of the designed sequences. Compared to the protein stability, it was more challenging to design an enzyme with improved activity or selectivity, due to the complexity of enzyme molecular structure and inadequate understanding of the relationships between enzyme structures and functions. However, with the development of computational force, advanced algorithm and a deeper understanding of enzyme catalytic mechanisms, rational design could significantly simplify the process of engineering enzyme functions and the number of studies applying rational design strategy has been increasing. Here, we reviewed the recent advances of applying the rational design strategy to engineer enzyme functions including activity and enantioselectivity. Five strategies including multiple sequence alignment, strategy based on steric hindrance, strategy based on remodeling interaction network, strategy based on dynamics modification and computational protein design are discussed and the successful cases using these strategies are introduced.

Structure-function relationship between soluble epoxide hydrolases structure and their tunnel network

Enzymes with buried active sites maintain their catalytic function via a single tunnel or tunnel network. In this study we analyzed the functionality of soluble epoxide hydrolases (sEHs) tunnel network, by comparing the overall enzyme structure with the tunnel's shape and size. sEHs were divided into three groups based on their structure and the tunnel usage. The obtained results were compared with known substrate preferences of the studied enzymes, as well as reported in our other work evolutionary analyses data. The tunnel network architecture corresponded well with the evolutionary lineage of the source organism and large differences between enzymes were observed from long fragments insertions. This strategy can be used during protein re-engineering process for large changes introduction, whereas tunnel modification can be applied for fine-tuning of enzyme.

Highly regio- and enantio-selective hydrolysis of two racemic epoxides by GmEH3, a novel epoxide hydrolase from Glycine max

A novel epoxide hydrolase from Glycine max, designated GmEH3, was excavated based on the computer-aided analysis. Then, gmeh3, a GmEH3-encoding gene, was cloned and successfully expressed in E. coli Rosetta(DE3). Among the ten investigated rac-epoxides, GmEH3 possessed the highest and best complementary regioselectivities (regioselectivity coefficients, αS = 93.7% and βR = 97.2%) in the asymmetric hydrolysis of rac-m-chlorostyrene oxide (5a), and the highest enantioselectivity (enantiomeric ratio, E = 55.6) towards rac-phenyl glycidyl ether (7a). The catalytic efficiency (kcatS/KmS = 2.50 mM-1 s-1) of purified GmEH3 for (S)-5a was slightly higher than that (kcatR/KmR = 1.52 mM-1 s-1) for (R)-5a, whereas the kcat/Km (5.16 mM-1 s-1) for (S)-7a was much higher than that (0.09 mM-1 s-1) for (R)-7a. Using 200 mg/mL wet cells of E. coli/gmeh3 as the biocatalyst, the scale-up enantioconvergent hydrolysis of 150 mM rac-5a at 25 °C for 1.5 h afforded (R)-5b with 90.2% eep and 95.4% yieldp, while the kinetic resolution of 500 mM rac-7a for 2.5 h retained (R)-7a with over 99% ees and 43.2% yields. Furthermore, the sources of high regiocomplementarity of GmEH3 for (S)- and (R)-5a as well as high enantioselectivity towards rac-7a were analyzed via molecular docking (MD) simulation.