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Chiral compounds are important drug intermediates that play a critical role in human life. Herein, we report a facile method to prepare multi-enzyme nano-devices with high catalytic activity and stability. The self-assemble molecular binders SpyCatcher and SpyTag were fused with leucine dehydrogenase and glucose dehydrogenase to produce sc-LeuDH (SpyCatcher-fused leucine dehydrogenase) and GDH-st (SpyTag-fused glucose dehydrogenase), respectively. After assembling, the cross-linked enzymes LeuDH-GDH were formed. The crosslinking enzyme has good pH stability and temperature stability. The coenzyme cycle constant of LeuDH-GDH was always higher than that of free double enzymes. The yield of l-tert-leucine synthesis by LeuDH-GDH was 0.47 times higher than that by free LeuDH and GDH. To further improve the enzyme performance, the cross-linked LeuDH-GDH was immobilized on zeolite imidazolate framework-8 (ZIF-8) via bionic mineralization, forming LeuDH-GDH @ZIF-8. The created co-immobilized enzymes showed even better pH stability and temperature stability than the cross-linked enzymes, and LeuDH-GDH@ZIF-8 retains 70% relative conversion rate in the first four reuses. In addition, the yield of LeuDH-GDH@ZIF-8 was 0.62 times higher than that of LeuDH-GDH, and 1.38 times higher than that of free double enzyme system. This work provides a novel method for developing multi-enzyme nano-device, and the ease of operation of this method is appealing for the construction of other multi-enzymes @MOF systems for the applications in the kinds of complex environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Background Biosynthesis of l-tert-leucine (l-tle), a significant pharmaceutical intermediate, by a cofactor regeneration system friendly and efficiently is a worthful goal all the time. The cofactor regeneration system of leucine dehydrogenase (LeuDH) and glucose dehydrogenase (GDH) has showed great coupling catalytic efficiency in the synthesis of l-tle, however the multi-enzyme complex of GDH and LeuDH has never been constructed successfully. Results In this work, a novel fusion enzyme (GDH–R3–LeuDH) for the efficient biosynthesis of l-tle was constructed by the fusion of LeuDH and GDH mediated with a rigid peptide linker. Compared with the free enzymes, both the environmental tolerance and thermal stability of GDH–R3–LeuDH had a great improved since the fusion structure. The fusion structure also accelerated the cofactor regeneration rate and maintained the enzyme activity, so the productivity and yield of l-tle by GDH–R3–LeuDH was all enhanced by twofold. Finally, the space–time yield of l-tle catalyzing by GDH–R3–LeuDH whole cells could achieve 2136 g/L/day in a 200 mL scale system under the optimal catalysis conditions (pH 9.0, 30 °C, 0.4 mM of NAD+ and 500 mM of a substrate including trimethylpyruvic acid and glucose). Conclusions It is the first report about the fusion of GDH and LeuDH as the multi-enzyme complex to synthesize l-tle and reach the highest space–time yield up to now. These results demonstrated the great potential of the GDH–R3–LeuDH fusion enzyme for the efficient biosynthesis of l-tle.

Background: L-tert-Leucine has been widely used in pharmaceutical, chemical, and other industries as a vital chiral intermediate. Compared with chemical methods, enzymatic methods to produce L-tert-leucine have unparalleled advantages. Previously, we found a novel leucine dehydrogenase from the halophilic thermophile Laceyella sacchari (LsLeuDH) that showed good thermostability and great potential for the synthesis of L-tert-leucine in the preliminary study. Hence, we manage to use the LsLeuDH coupling with a formate dehydrogenase from Candida boidinii (CbFDH) in the biosynthesis of L-tert-leucine through reductive amination in the present study. Result: The double-plasmid recombinant strain exhibited higher conversion than the single-plasmid recombinant strain when resting cells cultivated in shake flask for 22 h were used. Under the optimized conditions, the double-plasmid recombinant E. coli BL21 (pETDute-FDH-LDH, pACYCDute-FDH) transformed 1 mol·L-1 trimethylpyruvate (TMP) completely into L-tert-leucine with greater than 99.9% ee within 8 h. Conclusions: The LsLeuDH showed great ability to biosynthesize L-tert-leucine. In addition, it provided a new option for the biosynthesis of L-tert-leucine. How to cite: Wang L, Zhu W, Gao Z, et al. Biosynthetic L-tert-leucine using Escherichia coli co-expressing a novel NADH-dependent leucine dehydrogenase and a formate dehydrogenase. Electron J Biotechnol 2020;47. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejbt.2020.07.001

The asymmetric synthesis of chiral amino acids by leucine dehydrogenases has great potential for industrialization; however, the inhibitory effect of high‐concentration substrates limits its large‐scale application. Herein, using structure‐guided genome mining based on sequence‐structure prediction of substrate tolerance and specificity, a novel leucine dehydrogenase (LaLeuDH) from Labrenzia aggregate was identified and characterized, which exhibited the highest substrate tolerance and excellent activity to trimethyl pyruvate, even at 1.5 M concentration. Moreover, based on coenzyme binding structural information and sequence alignment, directed evolution of LaLeuDH was performed to increase affinity for NADH. The obtained variant D153 N/H191 N resulted in 25‐fold improved affinity for NADH, with 50‐fold enhanced catalytic efficiency (kcat/Km) of 40464.6 mM−1 s−1. Finally, through a combination of the above two strategies, as high as 1.5 M substrate could be completely converted in 18 h without coenzyme addition, demonstrating that this engineered enzyme has promising prospects for industrialization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Leucine dehydrogenase (LeuDH) has emerged as the most promising biocatalyst for L-tert-leucine (L-Tle) production via asymmetric reduction in trimethylpyruvate (TMP). In this study, a new LeuDH named PbLeuDH from marine Pseudomonas balearica was heterologously over-expressed in Escherichia coli, followed by purification and characterization. PbLeuDH possessed a broad substrate scope, displaying activities toward numerous L-amino acids and α-keto acids. Notably, compared with those reported LeuDHs, PbLeuDH exhibited excellent catalytic efficiency for TMP with a Km value of 4.92 mM and a kcat/Km value of 24.49 s−1 mM−1. Subsequently, L-Tle efficient production was implemented from TMP by whole-cell biocatalysis using recombinant E. coli as a catalyst, which co-expressed PbLeuDH and glucose dehydrogenase (GDH). Ultimately, using a fed-batch feeding strategy, 273 mM (35.8 g L−1) L-Tle was achieved with a 96.1% yield and 2.39 g L−1 h−1 productivity. In summary, our research provides a competitive biocatalyst for L-Tle green biosynthesis and lays a solid foundation for the realization of large-scale L-Tle industrial production.

L-tert-leucine (L-Tle) is widely used as vital chiral intermediate for pharmaceuticals and as chiral auxiliarie for organocatalysis. L-Tle is generally prepared via the asymmetric reduction of trimethylpyruvate (TMP) catalyzed by NAD+-dependent leucine dehydrogenase (LeuDH). To improve the catalytic efficiency and coenzyme affinity of LeuDH from Bacillus cereus, mutation libraries constructed by error-prone PCR and iterative saturation mutation were screened by two kinds of high-throughput methods. Compared with the wild type, the affinity of the selected mutant E24V/E116V for TMP and NADH increased by 7.7- and 2.8-fold, respectively. And the kcat/Km of E24V/E116V on TMP was 5.4-fold higher than that of the wild type. A coupled reaction comprising LeuDH with glucose dehydrogenase of Bacillus amyloliquefaciens resulted in substrate inhibition at high TMP concentrations (0.5 M), which was overcome by batch-feeding of the TMP substrate. The total turnover number and specific space-time conversion of 0.57 M substrate increased to 11,400 and 22.8 mmol·h−1·L−1·g−1, respectively. Key points: • The constructed new high-throughput screening strategy takes into account the two indicators of catalytic efficiency and coenzyme affinity. • A more efficient leucine dehydrogenase (LeuDH) mutant (E24V/E116V) was identified. • E24V/E116V has potential for the industrial synthesis of L-tert-leucine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Biosynthesis of l-tert-leucine (l-tle), a significant pharmaceutical intermediate, by a cofactor regeneration system friendly and efficiently is a worthful goal all the time. The cofactor regeneration system of leucine dehydrogenase (LeuDH) and glucose dehydrogenase (GDH) has showed great coupling catalytic efficiency in the synthesis of l-tle, however the multi-enzyme complex of GDH and LeuDH has never been constructed successfully. Results: In this work, a novel fusion enzyme (GDH–R3–LeuDH) for the efficient biosynthesis of l-tle was constructed by the fusion of LeuDH and GDH mediated with a rigid peptide linker. Compared with the free enzymes, both the environmental tolerance and thermal stability of GDH–R3–LeuDH had a great improved since the fusion structure. The fusion structure also accelerated the cofactor regeneration rate and maintained the enzyme activity, so the productivity and yield of l-tle by GDH–R3–LeuDH was all enhanced by twofold. Finally, the space–time yield of l-tle catalyzing by GDH–R3–LeuDH whole cells could achieve 2136 g/L/day in a 200 mL scale system under the optimal catalysis conditions (pH 9.0, 30 °C, 0.4 mM of NAD+ and 500 mM of a substrate including trimethylpyruvic acid and glucose). Conclusions: It is the first report about the fusion of GDH and LeuDH as the multi-enzyme complex to synthesize l-tle and reach the highest space–time yield up to now. These results demonstrated the great potential of the GDH–R3–LeuDH fusion enzyme for the efficient biosynthesis of l-tle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Among many genes encoding for amino acid dehydrogenase, a novel leucine dehydrogenase gene from Exiguobacterium sibiricum (EsiLeuDH) was isolated by using genome mining strategy. EsiLeuDH was overexpressed in Escherichia coli BL21 (DE3), followed by purification and characterization. The high thermostability of the enzyme confers its half-life up to 14.7 h at 50°C. Furthermore, the substrate specificity shows a broad spectrum, including many L-amino acids and aliphatic α-keto acids, especially some aryl α-keto acids. This enzyme coupled with recombinant formate dehydrogenase (FDH) was used to catalyze trimethylpyruvic acid (TMP) through reductive amination to generate enantiopure L-tert-leucine (L-Tle). In order to overcome the substrate inhibition effect, a fed-batch feeding strategy was adopted to transform up to 0.8 M of TMP to L-Tle, with an average conversion rate of 81% and L-Tle concentration of 65.6 g⋅L–1. This study provides a highly efficient biocatalyst for the synthesis of L-Tle and lays the foundation for large-scale production and application of chiral non-natural amino acids.

The L-tert-leucine-derived AmidPhos/silver(I) catalytic system has been developed for the asymmetric [3+2] cycloaddition of azomethine ylides with electronic-deficient alkenes with or without Et3N. Under optimal conditions, highly functionalized endo-4-pyrrolidines were obtained with modest to high yields (up to 99% yield) and enantioselectivities (up to 98% ee). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights: [•] An EsLeuDH with relatively high activity and thermal stability was discovered. [•] The EsLeuDH was coexpressed with BmGDH to avoid the usage of external cofactor. [•] Enantiopure l-tert-leucine was obtained at a yield of 80% in a 1-L reaction system. [•] The space-time-yield reached 944.7gL−1 d−1, higher than the results reported. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights: [•] N-phenylacetyl-DL-tert-leucine was resolved with immobilized penicillin G acylase. [•] The reaction was conveniently performed in water at pH 8.0 without pH regulation. [•] L-tert-Leucine was obtained in an enantiopure form (>99% ee). [•] Immobilized PGA showed a long-term stability for 51 days in a RPBR system. [•] Unreacted D-enantiomer was reused via racemization at 160°C for 15min. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT In the present work, Corynebacterium glutamicum was metabolically engineered for the enantioselective synthesis of non-proteinogenic amino acids as valuable building blocks for pharmaceuticals and agrochemicals. The novel bio-catalytic activity of C. glutamicum was obtained by heterologous expression of the branched chain aminotransferase IlvE from Escherichia coli. Upon this modification, the recombinant cells converted the α-keto acid precursor 2-(3-hydroxy-1-adamantyl)-2-oxoethanoic acid (HOAE) into the corresponding amino acid 2-(3-hydroxy-1-adamantyl)-(2S)-amino ethanoic acid (HAAE). Similarly, also L- tert-leucine could be obtained from trimethyl pyruvate indicating a broader applicability of the novel strategy. In both cases, the amino group donor glutamate was supplied from the endogenous metabolism of the recombinant producer. Hereby, the uptake of the precursor and secretion of the product was supported by an enhanced cell permeability through treatment of ethambutol, which inhibits arabinosyl transferases involved in cell wall biosynthesis. The excretion of HAAE into the reaction medium was linked to the secretion of glutamate, indicating a similar mechanism for the export of both compounds. On the other hand, the efflux of L- tert-leucine appeared to be driven by active transport. Subsequent bioprocess engineering enabled HAAE and L- tert-leucine to be produced at a rate of 0.21 and 0.42 mmol (g dry cells)−1 h−1, respectively up to a final product titer of 40 mM. Beyond the given examples, integrated metabolic and cell envelop engineering might extend the production of a variety of other non-proteinogenic amino acids as well as chiral amines by C. glutamicum. Biotechnol. Bioeng. 2013;110: 2846-2855. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In an attempt to develop a novel biocatalyst able to efficiently catalyse the synthesis of non-natural amino acids, Escherichia coli TG1 was treated with 10 mM NaNO2 and then cultured in selective medium supplemented with 20 mM l-tert-leucine. Each culture was grown for 2 weeks and then subcultured into fresh medium with successive decreases of l-tert-leucine concentration at each transfer to a final value of 0.5 mM. The adapted cells resulting from this forced evolution procedure were able to grow in minimal medium with 0.1 mM l-tert-leucine as sole nitrogen source. Both HPLC and TLC verified progressive removal of l-tert-leucine from the medium during bacterial growth. Further studies revealed that the adapted cells metabolized l-tert-leucine by transamination, removing the amino group but leaving the carbon skeleton of the corresponding 2-oxoacid intact. Despite the mutagenesis, when the four obvious candidate amino acid aminotransferase genes were cloned and sequenced, there was no change in these structural genes. The activity of the adapted cells with l-tert-leucine is apparently attributable to the wild-type branched-chain amino acid aminotransferase (IlvAT), presumably expressed at higher levels as a result of a regulatory mutation. With the isolate I-4, the resting cells transaminate l-tert-leucine, l-norleucine, l-norvaline, γ-methyl- l-leucine and dl-homophenylalanine as effectively as does the crude extract. These evolved cells may be useful for synthesizing non-natural amino acids for the pharmaceutical industry. In addition, the adapted cells can also catalyse transamination of naturally occurring hydrophobic amino acids. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: l-Tert-leucine (Tle) and l-3-hydroxyadamantylglycine of (HAG) are important intermediates for a variety of pharmaceutical classes. They were asymmetrically produced from corresponding keto acids using branched-chain aminotransferase (BCAT) with l-glutamate (Glu) as an amino donor. For the production of l-Tle and l-HAG, BCAT from Enterobacter sp. TL3 (BCATen) and BCAT from Escherichia coli K12 (ilvE, newly named as BCATes) were used, respectively. In our current study, we characterized the basic properties of BCATen and BCATes such as substrate specificity, enantioselectivity, and kinetic parameters. The activities of BCATen and BCATes were inhibited severely by α-ketoglutarate which is a deaminated product of l-Glu. In the presence of 10mM α-ketoglutarate, both enzymes activities were reduced up to 80%. In order to overcome product inhibition by α-ketoglutarate and the problem of equilibrium of the transamination reaction, coupling reactions were carried out with l-glutamate dehydrogenase (GDH)/formate dehydrogenase (FDH) and AspAT. The coupling reaction dramatically increased the yields of both target compounds. 135mM of l-Tle (>99% ee) was produced from 150mM corresponding keto acid in BCATen/GDH/FDH coupling reaction with 90% conversion. In addition, 90.5mM l-HAG (>99% ee) was produced from 100mM corresponding keto acid in BCATes/AspAT coupling reaction using recombinant whole-cells. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Among many genes encoding for amino acid dehydrogenase, a novel leucine dehydrogenase gene from Exiguobacterium sibiricum ( Esi LeuDH) was isolated by using genome mining strategy. Esi LeuDH was overexpressed in Escherichia coli BL21 (DE3), followed by purification and characterization. The high thermostability of the enzyme confers its half-life up to 14.7 h at 50°C. Furthermore, the substrate specificity shows a broad spectrum, including many L-amino acids and aliphatic α-keto acids, especially some aryl α-keto acids. This enzyme coupled with recombinant formate dehydrogenase (FDH) was used to catalyze trimethylpyruvic acid (TMP) through reductive amination to generate enantiopure L- tert -leucine (L-Tle). In order to overcome the substrate inhibition effect, a fed-batch feeding strategy was adopted to transform up to 0.8 M of TMP to L-Tle, with an average conversion rate of 81% and L-Tle concentration of 65.6 g⋅L -1 . This study provides a highly efficient biocatalyst for the synthesis of L-Tle and lays the foundation for large-scale production and application of chiral non-natural amino acids., (Copyright © 2020 Luo, Zhu, Zhao, Zhang, Yang, Liu, Rao and Yu.)