Chemoenzymatic synthesis of small molecule human therapeutics.

Pharmaceuticals have historically been produced by either chemical synthesis or whole cell fermentation. The former is applied to synthetic small molecules while the latter to natural products. As a result of recent advances in rapid discovery of enzymes through genome mining and metagenomics, and their tunability in functions and stability through directed evolution, biocatalysis is emerging to be a transformational technology for drug discovery and production. Enzymes can catalyze reactions otherwise challenging by chemical approaches. Furthermore, enzymatic catalysis is a powerful tool for green chemistry development. This manuscript gives a brief overview of current status in integrating chemical and biological transformations for the synthesis of small molecular therapeutics.

Directed evolution of 2-keto-3-deoxy-6-phosphogalactonate aldolase to replace 3-deoxy-D-arabino-heptulosonic acid 7-phosphate synthase.

Directed evolution of 2-keto-3-deoxy-6-phosphogalactonate (KDPGal) aldolase for microbial synthesis of shikimate pathway products provides an alternate strategy to circumvent the competition for phosphoenolpyruvate between 3-deoxy-D-arabino-heptulosonic acid 7-phosphate (DAHP) synthase and the phosphoenolpyruvate:carbohydrate phosphotransferase system in Escherichia coli. E. coli KDPGal aldolase was evolved using a combination of error-prone polymerase chain reaction, DNA shuffling, and multiple-site-directed mutagenesis to afford KDPGal aldolase variant NR8.276-2, which exhibits a 60-fold improvement in the ratio kcat/KM relative to that of wild-type E. coli KDPGal aldolase in catalyzing the addition of pyruvate to d-erythrose 4-phosphate to form DAHP. On the basis of its nucleotide sequence, NR8.276-2 contains seven amino acid changes from the wild-type E. coli KDPGal aldolase. Amplified expression of NR8.276-2 in the DAHP synthase and shikimate dehydrogenase-deficient E. coli strain NR7 under fed-batch fermentor-controlled cultivation conditions resulted in synthesis of 13 g/L 3-dehydroshikimic acid in 6.5% molar yield from glucose. Increased coexpression of the irreversible downstream enzyme 3-dehydroquinate synthase increased production of 3-dehydroshikimic acid to 19 g/L in 9.7% molar yield from glucose. Coamplification with transketolase, which increases d-erythrose 4-phosphate availability, afforded 16 g/L 3-dehydroshikimic acid in 8.5% molar yield.

Creation of a shikimate pathway variant.

The competition between the Escherichia coli carbohydrate phosphotransferase system and 3-deoxy-d-arabino-heptulosonate 7-phosphate (DAHP) synthase for phosphoenolpyruvate limits the concentration and yield of natural products microbially synthesized via the shikimate pathway. To circumvent this competition for phosphoenolpyruvate, a shikimate pathway variant has been created. 2-Keto-3-deoxy-6-phosphogalactonate (KDPGal) aldolases encoded by Escherichia coli dgoA and Klebsiella pneumoniae dgoA are subjected to directed evolution. The evolved KDPGal aldolase isozymes exhibit 4-8-fold higher specific activities relative to that for native KDPGal aldolase with respect to catalyzing the condensation of pyruvate and d-erythrose 4-phosphate to produce DAHP. To probe the ability of the created shikimate pathway variant to support microbial growth and metabolism, growth rates and synthesis of 3-dehydroshikimate are examined for E. coli constructs that lack phosphoenolpruvate-based DAHP synthase activity and rely on evolved KDPGal aldolase for biosynthesis of shikimate pathway intermediates and products.