Dehydrated enzymes

Efficient biocatalysis in neat organic solvent depends on the careful choice of the method of dehydrated enzyme preparation and solvent used. Optimization of these factors towards a given transformation is often known as catalyst formulation and solvent, or medium, engineering respectively, both of which will be briefly discussed below. Catalyst engineering which also provides a powerful method of improving activity and stability, is discussed in Chapter 2. 

A requirement of biocatalysis in neat organic solvent is the use of a dehydrated form of an enzyme that displays the desired activity. A number of techniques are available for the preparation of dehydrated enzymes, some of which are discussed in a recent review by Griebenow and Barietta.The techniques that have been most commonly used are ... 

The resultant dehydrated enzyme preparations often display comparable activity to untreated enzyme when reconstituted in aqueous buffer. However, in the case of many enzymes, activity in a suitable neat organic solvent can be three to five orders of magnitude lower than in water. This was recognized by Klibanov early on in the... 

From experiments on (i) replacement of water with other hydrogen bond forming additives and (ii) titration of enzyme amino groups in an organic medium, as well as the literature data on dehydrated enzymes, it is concluded that the water required by enzymes in non-aqueous solvents provides them with sufficient conformational flexibility for catalysis (Zaks, 1988b). 

Recently, aliphatic alcohol oxidase was applied as dehydrated enzyme in a gas-solid bioreactor11491 an excess amount of catalase was added to prevent oxidase inactivation. 

Abeles and co-workers extended the work of Buckel on the properties and mechanism of the reductive dehydration of lactate to propionate in C. propionicum (234, 235). Studies by Abeles concluded that acrylate is indeed an intermediate in lactate dehydration, based on the observation of a primary kinetic isotope effect of 1.8 on the conversion of [3- H3]lactate to propionate, indicating that -hydrogen abstraction is at least partially rate limiting. The true substrates for the reaction were determined to be the CoA thioesters of lactate and acrylate, hence the enzyme has been aptly named lactyl-CoA dehydratase (234). The reaction was found to be mediated by two proteins, El and E2, and like the (R)-2-hydroxyglutarate-dehydrating enzyme from A. fermentans, both El and E2 from... 

Dry or dehydrated enzymes Controls insects and harmful bacteria 10... 

D-Mevalonic acid is the fundamental intermediate in the biosynthesis of the terpenoids and steroids, together classed as poly-isoprenoids. The biogenetic isoprene unit is isopentenyl pyrophosphate which arises by enzymic decarboxylation-dehydration of mevalonic acid pyrophosphate. D-Mevalonic acid is almost quantitatively incorporated into cholesterol synthesized by rat liver homogenates. 

The next three steps—reduction of the /3-carbonyl group to form a /3-alcohol, followed by dehydration and reduction to saturate the chain (Figure 25.7) — look very similar to the fatty acid degradation pathway in reverse. However, there are two crucial differences between fatty acid biosynthesis and fatty acid oxidation (besides the fact that different enzymes are involved) First, the alcohol formed in the first step has the D configuration rather than the L form seen in catabolism, and, second, the reducing coenzyme is NADPH, although NAD and FAD are the oxidants in the catabolic pathway. 

In mammalian erythrocytes (red blood-cells) the forward (hydration) reaction occurs during the uptake of CO, by blood in tissue, while the backward (dehydration) reaction takes place when the CO, is subsequently released in the lungs. The enzyme increases the rates of these reactions by a factor of about one million. 

One of the problems with cycloserine (57) as an antibacterial agent is its tendency to dimenze In an attempt to overcome this, the prodrug penti/idone (59) has been prepared The primary amino group essential for the dimenzation reacnon is reversibly blocked to prevent this Penti/idone is synthesized conveniently from cycloserine (57) by merely mixing it with acetyl acetone (58) and storing for two days to achieve the dehydration The resulting pentizidone apparently requires enzymic assistance to release cycloserine in vivo [20]... 

All three elimination reactions--E2, El, and ElcB—occur in biological pathways, but the ElcB mechanism is particularly common. The substrate is usually an alcohol, and the H atom removed is usually adjacent to a carbonyl group, just as in laboratory reactions. Thus, 3-hydroxy carbonyl compounds are frequently converted to unsaturated carbonyl compounds by elimination reactions. A typical example occurs during the biosynthesis of fats when a 3-hydroxybutyryl thioester is dehydrated to the corresponding unsaturated (crotonyl) thioester. The base in this reaction is a histidine amino acid in the enzyme, and loss of the OH group is assisted by simultaneous protonation. 

Step 2 of Figure 29.12 Isomerization Citrate, a prochiral tertiary alcohol, is next converted into its isomer, (2, 35)-isocitrate, a chiral secondary alcohol. The isomerization occurs in two steps, both of which are catalyzed by the same aconitase enzyme. The initial step is an ElcB dehydration of a /3-hydroxy acid to give cfs-aconitate, the same sort of reaction that occurs in step 9 of glycolysis (Figure 29.7). The second step is a conjugate nucleophilic addition of water to the C=C bond (Section 19.13). The dehydration of citrate takes place specifically on the pro-R arm—the one derived from oxaloacetate—rather than on the pro-S arm derived from acetyl CoA. 

Scheme 10.8 Biosynthesis of epothilone. Individual PKS domains are represented as circles and individual NRPS domains as hexagons. Acyl carrier proteins (ACPs) and thiola-tion domains (T) are posttranslationally modified by a phos-phopantetheinyl group to which the biosynthetic intermediates are covalently bound throughout the chain assembly. The thioesterase domain (TE) cyclizes the fully assembled carbon chain to give the 16-membered lactone. Following dehydration of Cl 2—Cl 3 to give epothilones C and D, the final step in epothilone biosynthesis is the epoxidation of the C12=C13 double bond by the cytochrome P450 enzyme P450epol<. KS ketosyn-thase KS(Y) active-site tyrosine mutant of KS AT acyltransfer-ase C condensation domain A adenylation domain ...

The acetate labeling results clearly demonstrated a polyketide origin for the naphthoate fragment. This resulted in the hypothesis that the first enzyme-free intermediate in azinomycin biosynthesis would be naphthoate 102, with condensation to fonn a polyketone chain, reduction, cyclization, and dehydration/aromati-... 

Almost all types of cell can be used to convert an added compound into another compound, involving many forms of enzymatic reaction including dehydration, oxidation, hydroxyla-tion, animation, isomerisation, etc. These types of conversion have advantages over chemical processes in that the reaction can be very specific, and produced at moderate temperatures. Examples of transformations using enzymes include the production of steroids, conversion of antibiotics and prostaglandins. Industrial transformation requires the production of large quantities of enzyme, but the half-life of enzymes can be improved by immobilisation and extraction simplified by the use of whole cells. 

The first compound of this class with inhibitory activity on the enzyme and on acid secretion was the 2-(pyridylmethyl)sulfinylbenzimidazole, timopra-zole, and the fust pump inhibitor used clinically was omeprazole, 2-[[3,5-dimethyl-4-methoxypyridin-2-yl] methylsulfinyl]-5-methoxy- lH-benzimidazole. Omeprazole is an acid-activated prodrug. Omeprazole and the other PPIs are accumulated in the acidic space of the parietal cell due to the pKa of the pyridine nitrogen and these are converted due to protonation of the benzimidazole nitrogen first to a thiol-reactive cationic sulfenic acid and then dehydrated to form the sulfenamide (Fig. 1). These thiophilic cations then bind to luminally... 

Kaiser, W.M., Schroppel-Meier, G. Wirth, E. (1986). Enzyme activities in an artificial stroma medium An experimental model for studying effects of dehydration on photosynthesis. Planta, 167, 292-9. 

Citrate is isomerized to isocitrate by the enzyme aconitase (aconitate hydratase) the reaction occurs in two steps dehydration to r-aconitate, some of which remains bound to the enzyme and rehydration to isocitrate. Although citrate is a symmetric molecule, aconitase reacts with citrate asymmetrically, so that the two carbon atoms that are lost in subsequent reactions of the cycle are not those that were added from acetyl-CoA. This asymmetric behavior is due to channeling— transfer of the product of citrate synthase directly onto the active site of aconitase without entering free solution. This provides integration of citric acid cycle activity and the provision of citrate in the cytosol as a source of acetyl-CoA for fatty acid synthesis. The poison fluo-roacetate is toxic because fluoroacetyl-CoA condenses with oxaloacetate to form fluorocitrate, which inhibits aconitase, causing citrate to accumulate. 

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