Protein engineering of epoxide hydrolase from Agrobacterium radiobacter AD1 for enhanced activity and enantioselective production of (R)-1-phenylethane-1, 2-diol

DNA shuffling and saturation mutagenesis of positions F108, L190, 1219, D235, and C248 were used to generate variants of the epoxide hydrolase of Agrobacterium radiobacter AD1 (EchA) with enhanced enantioselectivity and activity for styrene oxide and enhanced activity for 1,2-epoxyhexane and epoxypropane. EchA variant I219F has more than fivefold-enhanced enantioselectivity toward racemic styrene oxide, with the enantiomeric ratio value (E value) for the production of (R)-1-phenylethane-1,2-diol increased from 17 for the wild-type enzyme to 91, as well as twofold-improved activity for the production of (R)-1-phenylethane-1,2-diol (1.96 ± 0.09 versus 1.04 ± 0.07 μmol/min/mg for wild-type EchA). Computer modeling indicated that this mutation significantly alters (R)-styrene oxide binding in the active site. Another three variants from EchA active-site engineering, F108L/C248I, I219L/C248I, and F108L/I219L/C248I, also exhibited improved enantioselectivity toward racemic styrene oxide in favor of production of the corresponding diol in the (R) configuration (twofold enhancement in their E values). Variant F108L/I219L/C248I also demonstrated 10-fold- and 2-fold-increased activity on 5 mM epoxypropane (24 ± 2 versus 2.4 ± 0.3 μmol/min/mg for the wild-type enzyme) and 5 mM 1,2-epoxyhexane (5.2 ± 0.5 versus 2.6 ± 0.0 μmol/min/mg for the wild-type enzyme). Both variants L190F (isolated from a DNA shuffling library) and L190Y (created from subsequent saturation mutagenesis) showed significantly enhanced activity for racemic styrene oxide hydrolysis, with 4.8-fold (8.6 ± 0.3 versus 1.8 ± 0.2 μmol/min/mg for the wild-type enzyme) and 2.7-fold (4.8 ± 0.8 versus 1.8 ± 0.2 μmol/min/mg for the wild-type enzyme) improvements, respectively. L190Y also hydrolyzed 1,2-epoxyhexane 2.5 times faster than the wild-type enzyme.