Phenylpyruvic add

Two reactions for the production of L-phenylalanine that can be performed particularly well in an enzyme membrane reactor (EMR) are shown in reaction 5 and 6. The recently discovered enzyme phenylalanine dehydrogenase plays an important role. As can be seen, the reactions are coenzyme dependent and the production of L-phenylalanine is by reductive animation of phenylpyruvic add. Electrons can be transported from formic add to phenylpyruvic add so that two substrates have to be used formic add and an a-keto add phenylpyruvic add (reaction 5). Also electrons can be transported from an a-hydroxy add to form phenylpyruvic add which can be aminated so that only one substrate has to be used a-hydroxy acid phenyllactic acid (reaction 6). 

The culture can be used directly for the conversion of phenylpyruvic add to resting cells L-phenylalanine. Therefore, a batch process with resting cells can be carried out, with some glucose added for maintenance (fed-batch fermentation). Another approach is to harvest the cells from the fermentation broth and to use them in a separate bioreactor in higher concentrations than the ones obtained in the cell cultivation. An advantage of the last method can be that the concentration of compounds other than L-phenylalanine is lower, so that downstream processing may be cheaper. 

A possible explanation for the superiority of the amino donor, L-aspartic add, has come from studies carried out on mutants of E. coli, in which only one of the three transaminases that are found in E. coli are present. It is believed that a branched chain transaminase, an aromatic amino add transaminase and an aspartate phenylalanine aspartase can be present in E. coli. The reaction of each of these mutants with different amino donors gave results which indicated that branched chain transminase and aromatic amino add transminase containing mutants were not able to proceed to high levels of conversion of phenylpyruvic add to L-phenylalanine. However, aspartate phenylalanine transaminase containing mutants were able to yield 98% conversion on 100 mmol l 1 phenylpyruvic acid. The explanation for this is probably that both branched chain transaminase and aromatic amino acid transminase are feedback inhibited by L-phenylalanine, whereas aspartate phenylalanine transaminase is not inhibited by L-phenylalanine. In addition, since oxaloacetate, which is produced when aspartic add is used as the amino donor, is readily converted to pyruvic add, no feedback inhibition involving oxaloacetate occurs. The reason for low conversion yield of some E. coli strains might be that these E. cdi strains are defident in the aspartate phenylalanine transaminase. 

Application of the desired biotransformation to give a practical and economical process required high molar conversion yields, high amino transferase activities, highly effident product recovery and an inexpensive source of phenylpyruvic add. With genetic and/or biochemical manipulation considerable progress can be made towards meeting some of these requirements. 

Consider the production of L-phenylalanine using P. fluorescerts by precursor (phenylpyruvic add) addition. Explain briefly why ... 

It was proven that the pathway of L-phenylalanine formation involved phenylpyruvic add as intermediate and two steps could be distinguished (see Figure 8.6 section 8.7) ... 

The best results were obtained with L-aspartic add as the amino donor for P. denitrificam and phenylpyruvic add as the amino acceptor. With L-aspartic add, conversion of phenylpyruvic add exceeded 90%. This may be attributed to absence of feedback inhibition of the reaction due to metabolism of file reaction product, oxaloacetic add. When using glutamic acid the conversion of phenylpyruvic add did not exceed 60%. 

Table 8.7 The most important process conditions for the production of L-phenylalanine by direct fermentation precursor addition, phenylpyruvic add (PPA) bloconversion, acetamidocinnamic add (ACA).

A new development is the industrial production of L-phenylalanine by converting phenylpyruvic add with pyridoxalphosphate-dependent phenylalanine transaminase (see Figure A8.16). The biotransformation step is complicated by an unfavourable equilibrium and the need for an amino-donor (aspartic add). For a complete conversion of phenylpyruvic add, oxaloacetic add (deamination product of aspartic add) is decarboxylated enzymatically or chemically to pyruvic add. The use of immobilised . coli (covalent attachment and entrapment of whole cells with polyazetidine) is preferred in this process (Figure A8.17). 

E. Bulot and C. L. Cooney, Selective production of phenylalanine from phenylpyruvic add using growing cells of Corynebacterium glufamicum, Bio-technd. Lett., 7 93 (1985). 

The use of interm iates as substrates in L-phenylalanine synthesis avoids inhibition by metabolites. Phenylpyruvic add, an intermediate precursor in tfie biosynthesis of L-phenylalanine, can be converted to L-phenylalanine. L-aspartic add is often used as an amino donor. The amino group can only be transfdred from an... 

As can be seen from Table 8.7 productivity (expressed in g h b is highest for precursor addition. The production of L-phenylalanine from phenylpyruvic add also has the shortest reaction time to obtain hi conversions. The pH commonly used is around 75, quite normal for biological processes. Only the enzyme phenylalanine ammonia lyase shows an optimiim pH of lO.The process temperature varies between 30 and 40°C with an average of 35°C. No extreme temperatures have been reported due to the fact that denaturation occurs at hi temperatures. The optimal concentration for cells frequently used is 10-20 g 1". However, conversion of ACA is done with hi cell mass concentrations in recent studies possibly to compensate for substrate inhibition and thus to maintain hi product concentration. The processes using PPA and ACA need an amino add as amino donor, usually L-aspartic add is used. 

An alkaline pH ( pH 11) is desirable in order to achieve high conversion rates increase solubility of L-phenylalanine inhibit enzymes catalysing degradation of L-phenylalanine and formation of byproducts reduce inhibition of the reaction by the keto form of phenylpyruvic add. 

Concentrations of 4% phenylpyruvic add leads to end product inhibition by the L-phenylalanine produced, resulting in lower final yields. 

Figure 55-8 Partial urine organic acid profiles 15-23 minute portion of a 33 minute run) of two patients with tyrosinemia type i. A, Acutely III patient with markedly elevated excretion of succiny[acetone, pre-NTBC treatment.The insert shows the selected ion chromatogram of the [M-15] ion of succinylacetone O-TMS-oxime TMS ester, m/z 212 B, Fifteen month old patient, succinylacetone was not detected by either total ion current (orrow) or selected ion chromatogram in three different urine specimens.This patient was later shown to be compound heterozygote for the French Canadian common splice mutation (IVS12+5G>A) and another previously unreported mutation. Peak legend I, Succinylacetone (oxime, peak I) 2, succinylacetone (oxime, peak II) 3, 4-hydroxy phenyllactic acid 4, 4-hydroxy phenylpyruvic add (oxime).The symbol marks the internal standard (pentadecanoic acid), signal abundance is normalized to the intensity of the internal standard peak.

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