An Evaluation of the Substrate Specificity, and of Its Modification by Site-Directed Mutagenesis, of the Cloned L-Lactate Dehydrogenase from Bacillus stearothermophilus

Article abstract of DOI:10.1021/ja00199a046

The L-lactate dehydrogenase of Bacillus stearothermophilus (BSLDH) is a stable, thermophilic oxidoreductase.It has been selected as a model of enzymes with considerable future promise in assymetric synthesis in that it has been cloned to ensure a plentiful and inexpensive supply and because of the potential for tailoring its specificity to accept unnatural substrate structures via the site-directed mutagenesis techniques of moleculer biology.In this study, the specificity of BSLDH toward representative α-keto acids possessing straight- and branched-chain alkyl,cycloalkyl, or aromatic side chains has been evaluated.The results show that substrates that are sterically bulky in the region of the α-keto group to be reduced are poorly accepted by the enzyme.Graphics analyses indicated that the low activities of these hindered substrates might be partly due to a bad interaction of the active site residue Gln102 with large or branched substituents adjacent to the α-keto group.Accordingly, Gln102 has been replaced by the smaller Asn residue by site-directed mutagenesis in an attempt to expand the active site volume available to receive substrates larger than the natural pyruvate.However, the kinetic data show that bulky α-keto acids are only marginally better accommodated by the Gln102 -> Asn mutant than by the wild-type enzyme.