Enzymatic Photometric Assays for the Selective Detection of Halides.

Halides are substrates and products of a number of biotechnologically important enzymes like dehalogenases, halide methyltransferases, and halogenases. Therefore, the determination of halide concentrations in samples is important. The classical methods based on mercuric thiocyanate are very dangerous, produce hazardous waste, and do not discriminate between chloride, bromide, and iodide. In this chapter, we describe a detailed protocol for the determination of halide concentrations based on the haloperoxidase-catalyzed oxidation of halides. The resulting hypohalous acids are detected using commercially available colorimetric or fluorimetric probes. The biocatalytic nature of the assays allows them to be implemented in one-pot cascade reactions with halide-generating enzymes. Since chloride is ubiquitous in biological systems, we also describe convenient photometric assays for the selective detection of bromide and iodide in the presence of chloride, obviating the need for laborious dialyses to obtain halide-free enzymes and reagents.

Directed Evolution of a Halide Methyltransferase Enables Biocatalytic Synthesis of Diverse SAM Analogs.

Biocatalytic alkylations are important reactions to obtain chemo-, regio- and stereoselectively alkylated compounds. This can be achieved using S-adenosyl-l-methionine (SAM)-dependent methyltransferases and SAM analogs. It was recently shown that a halide methyltransferase (HMT) from Chloracidobacterium thermophilum can synthesize SAM from SAH and methyl iodide. We developed an iodide-based assay for the directed evolution of an HMT from Arabidopsis thaliana and used it to identify a V140T variant that can also accept ethyl-, propyl-, and allyl iodide to produce the corresponding SAM analogs (90, 50, and 70 % conversion of 15 mg SAH). The V140T AtHMT was used in one-pot cascades with O-methyltransferases (IeOMT or COMT) to achieve the regioselective ethylation of luteolin and allylation of 3,4-dihydroxybenzaldehyde. While a cascade for the propylation of 3,4-dihydroxybenzaldehyde gave low conversion, the propyl-SAH intermediate could be confirmed by NMR spectroscopy.

An Ultrasensitive Fluorescence Assay for the Detection of Halides and Enzymatic Dehalogenation.

Halide assays are important for the study of enzymatic dehalogenation, a topic of great industrial and scientific importance. Here we describe the development of a very sensitive halide assay that can detect less than a picomole of bromide ions, making it very useful for quantifying enzymatic dehalogenation products. Halides are oxidised under mild conditions using the vanadium-dependent chloroperoxidase from Curvularia inaequalis, forming hypohalous acids that are detected using aminophenyl fluorescein. The assay is up to three orders of magnitude more sensitive than currently available alternatives, with detection limits of 20 nM for bromide and 1 µM for chloride and iodide. We demonstrate that the assay can be used to determine specific activities of dehalogenases and validate this by comparison to a well-established GC-MS method. This new assay will facilitate the identification and characterisation of novel dehalogenases and may also be of interest to those studying other halide-producing enzymes.