Kinetic and Binding Studies of Streptococcus pneumoniae Type 2 Isopentenyl Diphosphate:Dimethylallyl Diphosphate Isomerase

Enhancement of the catalytic activity of Isopentenyl diphosphate isomerase (IDI) from Saccharomyces cerevisiae through random and site-directed mutagenesis

Background

Lycopene is a terpenoid pigment that has diverse applications in the food and medicine industries. A prospective approach for lycopene production is by metabolic engineering in microbial hosts, such as Escherichia coli. Isopentenyl diphosphate isomerase (IDI, E.C. 5.3.3.2) is one of the rate-limiting enzymes in the lycopene biosynthetic pathway and one major target during metabolic engineering. The properties of IDIs differ depending on the sources, but under physiological conditions, IDIs are limited by low enzyme activity, short half-life and weak substrate affinity. Therefore, it is important to prepare an excellent IDI by protein engineering.

Results

Directed evolution strategy (error-prone PCR) was utilized to optimize the activity of Saccharomyces cerevisiae IDI. Using three rounds of error-prone PCR; screening the development of a lycopene-dependent color reaction; and combinatorial site-specific saturation mutagenesis, three activity-enhancing mutations were identified: L141H, Y195F, and W256C. L141H, located near the active pocket inside the tertiary structure of IDI, formed a hydrogen bond with nearby β-phosphates of isopentenylpyrophosphate (IPP). Phe-195 and Cys-256 were nonpolar amino acids and located near the hydrophobic group of IPP, enlarging the hydrophobic scope, and the active pocket indirectly. Purified IDI was characterized and the result showed that the K_m of mutant IDI decreased by 10% compared with K_m of the parent IDI, and K_cat was 28% fold improved compared to that of the original IDI. Results of a fermentation experiment revealed that mutant IDI had a 1.8-fold increased lycopene production and a 2.1-fold increased yield capacity compared to wild-type IDI.

Conclusion

We prepared an engineered variant of IDI with improved catalytic activity by combining random and site directed mutagenesis. The best mutants produced by this approach enhanced catalytic activity while also displaying improved stability in pH, enhanced thermostability and longer half-life. Importantly, the mutant IDI could play an important role in fed-batch fermentation, being an effective and attractive biocatalyst for the production of biochemicals.

Electronic supplementary material

The online version of this article (10.1186/s12934-018-0913-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

The type II isopentenyl Diphosphate:Dimethylallyl diphosphate isomerase (IDI-2): A model for acid/base chemistry in flavoenzyme catalysis

The chemical versatility of the flavin coenzyme is nearly unparalleled in enzyme catalysis. An interesting illustration of this versatility can be found in the reaction catalyzed by the type II isopentenyl diphosphate:dimethylallyl diphosphate isomerase (IDI-2) - an enzyme that interconverts the two essential isoprene units (isopentenyl pyrophosphate and dimethylallyl pyrophosphate) that are needed to initiate the biosynthesis of all isoprenoids. Over the past decade, a variety of biochemical, spectroscopic, structural and mechanistic studies of IDI-2 have provided mounting evidence that the flavin coenzyme of IDI-2 acts in a most unusual manner - as an acid/base catalyst to mediate a 1,3-proton addition/elimination reaction. While not entirely without precedent, IDI-2 is by far the most extensively studied flavoenzyme that employs flavin-mediated acid/base catalysis. Thus, IDI-2 serves as an important mechanistic model for understanding this often overlooked, but potentially widespread reactivity of flavin coenzymes. This review details the most pertinent studies that have contributed to the development of mechanistic proposals for this highly unusual flavoenzyme, and discusses future experiments that may be able to clarify remaining uncertainties in the chemical mechanism of IDI-2.

Construction of Functional Monomeric Type 2 Isopentenyl Diphosphate:Dimethylallyl Diphosphate Isomerase

Type 2 isopentenyl diphosphate:dimethylallyl diphosphate isomerase (IDI-2) catalyzes the interconversion of isopentenyl diphosphate (IPP) and dimethylallyl diphosphate (DMAPP) in the isoprenoid biosynthetic pathway. The enzyme from Streptomyces pneumoniae (spIDI-2) is a homotetramer in solution with behavior, including a substantial increase in the rate of FMN reduction by NADPH in the presence of IPP, suggesting that substrate binding at one subunit alters the kinetic and binding properties of another. We now report the construction of catalytically active monomeric spIDI-2. The monomeric enzyme contains a single-point mutation (N37A) and a six-residue C-terminal deletion that preserves the secondary structure of the subunits in the wild-type (wt) homotetramer. UV-vis spectra of the enzyme-bound flavin mononucleotide (FMN) cofactor in FMNox, FMNred, and FMNred·IPP/DMAPP states are the same for monomeric and wt homotetrameric spIDI-2. The mutations in monomeric IDI-2 lower the melting temperature of the protein by 20 °C and reduce the binding affinities of FMN and IDI by 40-fold but have a minimal effect on kcat. Stopped-flow kinetic studies of monomeric spIDI-2 showed that the rate of reduction of FMN by NADH (k = 1.64 × 10(-3) s(-1)) is substantially faster when IPP is added to the monomeric enzyme (k = 0.57 s(-1)), similar to behavior seen for wt-spIDI-2. Our results indicate that cooperative interactions among subunits in the wt homotetramer are not responsible for the increased rate of reduction of spIDI-2·FMN by NADH, and two possible scenarios for the enhancement are suggested.