T. Naka et al. / Journal of Molecular Catalysis B: Enzymatic 67 (2010) 150–154
151
BY4742 using polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and ligated into the
pET15b vector as described previously in Ref. [13]. The resultant
plasmid encoding the DsdSC with a C-terminal His tag was cloned
6
into Escherichia coli KRX cells (Promega, Madison, WI, USA). DsdSC
was overexpressed and then purified to homogeneity with the Ni-
chelating, anion exchanger DEAE-Toyopearl, and gel permeation
chromatography [13].
Geobacillus stearothermophilus alanine racemase (AR) with an
asparagine mutation at Tyr354 (referred to as “mAR/Y354N”
hereafter) catalyzes the racemization of l-serine at a rate of
8
0 times that of the wild-type enzyme [16]. To construct the
mAR/Y354N gene, the AR gene with N-terminal His6 tag and
thrombin cleavage sequences in the pET15b vector was mutated
with the QuickChange site-directed mutagenesis kit (Agilent Tech-
nologies, Santa Clara CA, USA) using the complementary primer
ꢀ
ꢀ
pairs, 5 -GGAAACGATCAACAACGAAGTGCCTTGC-3 (forward) and
5
ꢀ
ꢀ
-GCAAGGCACTTCGTTGTTGATCGTTTCC-3 (reverse). The mutated
plasmid was cloned into E. coli BL21(DE3) cells to overexpress
mAR/Y354N. Subsequently, mAR/Y354N was purified to homo-
geneity with heat treatment, Butyl-Toyopearl, DEAE-Toyopearl and
gel permeation chromatography [17].
Fig. 1. d-Serine and total (d- + l-) serine assay with DsdSC. The enzymatic assay for
d-serine utilizes three enzymes; DsdSC, pyruvate oxidase and HRP, and the fluores-
cent reagent Amplex® Red. DsdSC converts d-serine to pyruvate, which is oxidized
by pyruvate oxidase. Hydrogen peroxide that is formed during the oxidation is
Pyruvate oxidase and horseradish peroxidase (HRP) were pur-
chased from TOYOBO (Tokyo, Japan) and Sigma–Aldrich (St. Louis,
MO, USA), respectively.
®
detected with HRP and Amplex Red. d-Serine concentrations can be determined
2.2. Reagents
from the fluorescence intensity of the resorufin product. To measure total (d- + l-)
serine content, mutant alanine racemase (mAR/Y354N) catalyzing serine racemiza-
tion can be coupled to the d-serine assay.
Amino acids were purchased from Wako (Osaka, Japan). The
optical purity of the d- and l-serine used in this study was over
9%. His-Bind resin was bought from Novagen (EMD Bioscience,
San Diego, CA, USA). DEAE-Toyopearl 650 M and Butyl-Toyopearl
50 M were obtained from Tosoh (Tokyo, Japan). Amplex® Red was
purchased from Invitrogen (Carlsbad, CA, USA). All other chemicals
were of analytical grade.
9
can also be used for the determination of total (d- + l-) serine
by coupling it with the mutant alanine racemase (mAlaR/Y354N),
which exhibits increased serine racemase activity [16]. l-Serine
concentration could be obtained by the subtraction of the d-serine
concentration from the total serine concentration [12]. With the
LDH-coupling method, we can detect 10–250 M d-serine or total
serine, which is sufficient to detect d-serine in human urine [12].
However, since the concentration of d-serine in human cere-
brospinal fluid and human serum is around 2–5 M [4–6], a 10-fold
higher sensitivity is required for the application of the assay to
the study and diagnosis of neurological disorders by detecting d-
serine in the cerebrospinal fluid or in serum. In this study, we
increased the sensitivity of the assay by using pyruvate oxidase,
horseradish peroxidase (HRP), and a fluorescence reagent, 10-
6
2.3. Equipment and analytical conditions
Fluorescence measurements were made using a RF5399-PC flu-
orospectrophotometer (Shimadzu, Kyoto, Japan) with a 3 mm cell,
or with a Fluoroskan Ascent microplate fluorometer (Thermo Elec-
tron Corporation, Vantaa, Finland). To prepare d- and l-serine for
the HPLC analysis, the amino acids were derivatized to fluores-
cent diastereomers with N-tertbutyloxycarbonyl-l-cysteine and
o-phthaldialdehyde (Boc-l-cysteine/OPA) as described previously
in Refs. [10,11]. The HPLC analysis was performed on a Shimadzu
SLC-10A system (Shimadzu) equipped with a COSMOSIL C-18 col-
umn (Nacalai Tesque, Kyoto, Japan). The derivatized amino acids
were separated by a linear gradient of 0–60% mobile phase B (47%
acetonitrile in a 0.1 M acetate buffer, pH 6.0) in mobile phase
A (7% acetonitrile in a 0.1 M acetate buffer, pH 6.0) for 120 min
at a flow rate of 0.8 ml/min at room temperature. Elution was
monitored with an RF-10A fluorescence detector (Shimadzu) with
excitation and emission wavelengths of 344 and 443 nm, respec-
tively.
®
acetyl-3,7-dihydroxyphenoxazine (Amplex Red) (Fig. 1). In the
new assay, d-serine is converted to pyruvate with DsdSC, followed
by the oxidization of pyruvate with pyruvate oxidase to produce
hydrogen peroxide. Finally, in the presence of HRP, the hydro-
®
gen peroxide oxidizes Amplex Red to resorufin, which exhibits
a strong fluorescence. Using this assay, we can detect submicro-
molar concentration of d-serine, and determine the d- and total
serine concentrations in calf serum.
2
. Experimental
2.1. Preparation of enzymes
2.4. Enzymatic assay of d- and total serine
In the previous studies, we used the DsdSC with an N-terminal
Upon completion of the enzymatic assay of d-serine with DsdSC,
the amount of hydrogen peroxide formed from the oxidation of
pyruvate with pyruvate oxidase was measured with Amplex®
Red and HRP. For the analysis of d-serine, the reaction mixture
consisted of100 mMsodium phosphatebuffer (pH7.5), 20 M pyri-
doxal phosphate (PLP), d-serine (sample), 0.1 unit or no DsdSC,
0.4 unit pyruvate oxidase, 1 unit of HRP and 40 M Amplex®
Red, in a final volume of 250 l. For the analysis of total ser-
ine, 0.6 unit of mAlaR/Y354N was added to this reaction mixture.
His6 Tag [12,13]. However, we found that the DsdSC with a C-
terminal His6 Tag showed similar properties and more efficient
productivity as compared to those of the N-terminal His-tagged
enzyme [Ito et al. manuscript in preparation]. Therefore, we used
the C-terminal His-tagged DsdSC in the present study. The expres-
sion vector of the C-terminal His-tagged enzyme was constructed
as follows. Briefly, the YGL196W gene (DSD1, gene symbol for Sac-
charomyces Genome Database) was amplified from S. cerevisiae