.
Angewandte
Communications
Protein Engineering
Hot Paper
Bioorthogonal Enzymatic Activation of Caged Compounds
Cornelia Ritter, Nathalie Nett, Carlos G. Acevedo-Rocha, Richard Lonsdale, Katja Kräling,
Felix Dempwolff, Sabrina Hoebenreich, Peter L. Graumann, Manfred T. Reetz,* and
Eric Meggers*
Abstract: Engineered cytochrome P450 monooxygenase var-
iants are reported as highly active and selective catalysts for the
bioorthogonal uncaging of propargylic and benzylic ether
protected substrates, including uncaging in living E. coli.
observed selectivity is supported by induced-fit docking and
molecular dynamics simulations. This proof-of-principle study
points towards the utility of bioorthogonal enzyme/protecting
group pairs for applications in the life sciences.
B
ioorthogonal chemistry allows the execution of chemical
reactions inside living cells without interfering with native
biochemical processes.[1] Originally mainly focusing on stoi-
chiometric and uncatalyzed reactions, recent efforts aim at
identifying catalysts to selectively recognize specific func-
tional groups uncommon in nature and facilitate their trans-
formation within a complex biological system.[2–6] Despite the
advantages of such systems, balancing high reactivity at low
substrate concentrations and inertness towards countless
cellular molecules is a formidable challenge for the design
of small-molecule catalysts, and reported examples of artifi-
cial bioorthogonal catalysts with high turnovers are rare.[2]
The undeniable advantage of signal amplification through
catalytic turnover has been successfully exploited in the area
of enzyme-based bioimaging and sensing.[7] Enzymes have
evolved over millions of years to be efficient biocatalysts,
working optimally and selectively in diverse biological
environments. Furthermore, protein engineering provides
powerful tools such as directed evolution[8] to improve
Figure 1. The concept of bioorthogonal enzymatic deprotection of
caged compounds realized through the P450-catalyzed oxidative cleav-
age of propargylic and benzylic ethers.
enzyme properties, including thermal or chemical stability,
enhanced activity, and stereo- and regioselectivity towards
native and non-native substrates. We thus reasoned that
engineered enzymes could expand the toolbox of bioorthog-
onal chemistry by selectively catalyzing the cleavage of an
artificial protecting group in living cells (Figure 1). Such
protecting group/enzyme pairs could address the performance
issues observed in chemical- or light-induced uncaging
reactions.[2,9]
Initially, suitable enzyme/protecting group pairs were
identified, ideally featuring bioorthogonality, which means
that the protecting group is completely stable in a biological
environment and is cleaved efficiently and selectively solely
by the engineered enzyme of choice. Based on these criteria,
we chose non-native propargylic ethers as alcohol-protecting
groups to be cleaved by a member of cytochrome P450
monooxygenase (CYP) family (see Scheme S1 in the Sup-
porting Information for mechanistic details). We hypothe-
sized that propargylic ethers would not be recognized as
substrates by natural enzymes but only by engineered CYPs.
As a model system, we used P450BM3 (CYP102A1), a soluble
fatty acid hydroxylase from Bacillus megaterium,[10] which is
a highly active, selective, and versatile biocatalyst that has
been demonstrated to be tunable for many different applica-
tions.[11,12] As a fusion protein carrying its own reductase
domain, P450BM3 is self-sufficient and depends only on oxygen
and its cofactor NADPH. As model reactions, we used ether-
protected fluorophores 1–3, which are nonfluorescent but
recover their fluorescence upon deprotection, so that ether
cleavage could be detected in a straightforward fashion
through fluorescence measurements. Based on known meth-
ods[13,14] we screened cytochrome P450BM3 libraries compris-
[*] C. Ritter, N. Nett, Dr. C. G. Acevedo-Rocha, Dr. R. Lonsdale,
K. Kräling, Dr. S. Hoebenreich, Prof. Dr. P. L. Graumann,
Prof. Dr. M. T. Reetz, Prof. Dr. E. Meggers
Fachbereich Chemie, Philipps-Universität Marburg
Hans-Meerwein-Straße 4, 35043 Marburg (Germany)
E-mail: meggers@chemie.uni-marburg.de
Dr. C. G. Acevedo-Rocha, Dr. R. Lonsdale, Prof. Dr. M. T. Reetz
Max-Planck-Institut für Kohlenforschung
Kaiser-Wilhelm-Platz 1, 45470 Mülheim an der Ruhr (Germany)
E-mail: reetz@mpi-muelheim.mpg.de
Dr. C. G. Acevedo-Rocha, Dr. F. Dempwolff, Prof. Dr. P. L. Graumann
LOEWE Zentrum für Synthetische Mikrobiologie (SYNMIKRO)
Hans-Meerwein-Straße, 35043 Marburg (Germany)
Dr. C. G. Acevedo-Rocha
Max-Planck-Institut für terrestrische Mikrobiologie
Karl-von-Frisch-Straße 10, 35043 Marburg (Germany)
Prof. Dr. E. Meggers
College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Xiamen University
Xiamen 361005 (P. R. China)
Supporting information for this article is available on the WWW
13440
ꢀ 2015 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim
Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2015, 54, 13440 –13443