Direct Alkylation of Amines with Primary and Secondary Alcohols through Biocatalytic Hydrogen Borrowing

The reductive aminase from Aspergillus oryzae (Asp RedAm) was combined with a single alcohol dehydrogenase (either metagenomic ADH‐150, an ADH from Sphingobium yanoikuyae (SyADH), or a variant of the ADH from Thermoanaerobacter ethanolicus (Te SADH W110A)) in a redox‐neutral cascade for the biocatalytic alkylation of amines using primary and secondary alcohols. Aliphatic and aromatic secondary amines were obtained in up to 99 % conversion, as well as chiral amines directly from the racemic alcohol precursors in up to >97 % ee , releasing water as the only byproduct.     

One‐Pot Bioconversion of l‐Arabinose to l‐Ribulose in an Enzymatic Cascade

This work reports the one‐pot enzymatic cascade that completely converts l ‐arabinose to l ‐ribulose using four reactions catalyzed by pyranose 2‐oxidase (P2O), xylose reductase, formate dehydrogenase, and catalase. As wild‐type P2O is specific for the oxidation of six‐carbon sugars, a pool of P2O variants was generated based on rational design to change the specificity of the enzyme towards the oxidation of l ‐arabinose at the C2‐position. The variant T169G was identified as the best candidate, and this had an approximately 40‐fold higher rate constant for the flavin reduction (sugar oxidation) step, as compared to the wild‐type enzyme. Computational calculations using quantum mechanics/molecular mechanics (QM/MM) molecular dynamics (MD) showed that this improvement is due to a decrease in the steric effects at the axial C4‐OH of l ‐arabinose, which allows a reduction in the distance between the C2‐H and flavin N5, facilitating hydride transfer and enabling flavin reduction.     

Design and Use of de novo Cascades for the Biosynthesis of New Benzylisoquinoline Alkaloids

The benzylisoquinoline alkaloids (BIAs) are an important group of secondary metabolites from higher plants and have been reported to show significant biological activities. The production of BIAs through synthetic biology approaches provides a higher‐yielding strategy than traditional synthetic methods or isolation from plant material. However, the reconstruction of BIA pathways in microorganisms by combining heterologous enzymes can also give access to BIAs through cascade reactions. Most importantly, non‐natural BIAs can be generated through such artificial pathways. In the current study, we describe the use of tyrosinases and decarboxylases and combine these with a transaminase enzyme and norcoclaurine synthase for the efficient synthesis of several BIAs, including six non‐natural alkaloids, in cascades from l ‐tyrosine and analogues.     

Biocomputing for Portable,Resettable, and Quantitative Point‐of‐Care Diagnostics: Making the Glucose Meter a Logic‐Gate Responsive Device for Measuring Many Clinically Relevant Targets

It is recognized that biocomputing can provide intelligent solutions to complex biosensing projects. However, it remains challenging to transform biomolecular logic gates into convenient, portable, resettable and quantitative sensing systems for point‐of‐care (POC) diagnostics in a low‐resource setting. To overcome these limitations, the first design of biocomputing on personal glucose meters (PGMs) is reported, which utilizes glucose and the reduced form of nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide as signal outputs, DNAzymes and protein enzymes as building blocks, and demonstrates a general platform for installing logic‐gate responses (YES, NOT, INHIBIT, NOR, NAND, and OR) to a variety of biological species, such as cations (Na⁺), anions (citrate), organic metabolites (adenosine diphosphate and adenosine triphosphate) and enzymes (pyruvate kinase, alkaline phosphatase, and alcohol dehydrogenases). A concatenated logical gate platform that is resettable is also demonstrated. The system is highly modular and can be generally applied to POC diagnostics of many diseases, such as hyponatremia, hypernatremia, and hemolytic anemia. In addition to broadening the clinical applications of the PGM, the method reported opens a new avenue in biomolecular logic gates for the development of intelligent POC devices for on‐site applications.     

Catalytic Alkylation Using a Cyclic S‐Adenosylmethionine Regeneration System

S‐Adenosylmethionine‐dependent methyltransferases are versatile tools for the specific alkylation of many compounds, such as pharmaceuticals, but their biocatalytic application is severely limited owing to the lack of a cofactor regeneration system. We report a biomimetic, polyphosphate‐based, cyclic cascade for methyltransferases. In addition to the substrate to be methylated, only methionine and polyphosphate have to be added in stoichiometric amounts. The system acts catalytically with respect to the cofactor precursor adenosine in methylation and ethylation reactions of selected substrates, as shown by HPLC analysis. Furthermore, ¹H and ¹³C NMR measurements were performed to unequivocally identify methionine as the methyl donor and to gain insight into the selectivity of the reactions. This system constitutes a vital stage in the development of economical and environmentally friendly applications of methyltransferases.     

Discovery of a Calcium‐Dependent Enzymatic Cascade for the Selective Assembly of Hapalindole‐Type Alkaloids: On the Biosynthetic Origin of Hapalindole U

Hapalindole U ( 4 ) is a validated biosynthetic precursor to ambiguine alkaloids (Angew. Chem. Int. Ed . 2016 , 55 , 5780), of which biogenetic origin remains unknown. The recent discovery of AmbU4 (or FamC1) protein encoded in the ambiguine biosynthetic pathway (J. Am. Chem. Soc . 2015 , 137 , 15366), an isomerocyclase that can rearrange and cyclize geranylated indolenine ( 2 ) to a previously unknown 12‐epi ‐hapalindole U ( 3 ), raised the question whether 3 is a direct precursor to 4 or an artifact arising from the limited in vitro experiments. Here we report a systematic approach that led to the discovery of an unprecedented calcium‐dependent AmbU1‐AmbU4 enzymatic complex for the selective formation of 4 . This discovery refuted the intermediacy of 3 and bridged the missing links in the early‐stage biosynthesis of ambiguines. This work further established the isomerocyclases involved in the biogenesis of hapalindole‐type alkaloids as a new family of calcium‐dependent enzymes, where the metal ions are shown critical for their enzymatic activities and selectivities.