A high-throughput visual screening method for p-hydroxybenzoate hydroxylase to increase phenolic compounds biosynthesis

Background

Gallic acid (GA) and pyrogallol are phenolic hydroxyl compounds and have diverse biological activities. Microbial-based biosynthesis, as an ecofriendly method, has been used for GA and pyrogallol production. In GA and pyrogallol biosynthetic pathways, the low hydroxylation activity of p-hydroxybenzoate hydroxylase (PobA) towards 3,4-dihydroxybenzoic acid (3,4-DHBA) limited the high-level biosynthesis of GA and pyrogallol.

Results

This work reported a high activity PobA mutant (Y385F/T294A/V349A PobA) towards 3,4-DHBA. This mutant was screened out from a PobA random mutagenesis library through a novel naked eye visual screening method. In vitro enzyme assay showed this mutant has a k_cat/K_m of 0.059 μM⁻¹ s⁻¹ towards 3,4-DHBA, which was 4.92-fold higher than the reported mutant (Y385F/T294A PobA). Molecular docking simulation provided the possible catalytic mechanism explanation of the high activity mutant. Expression of this mutant in E. coli BW25113 (Fʹ) can generate 840 ± 23 mg/L GA from 1000 mg/L 3,4-DHBA. After that, this mutant was assembled into a de novo GA biosynthetic pathway. Subsequently, this pathway was introduced into a 3,4-DHBA-producing strain (E. coli BW25113 (Fʹ)ΔaroE) to achieve 301 ± 15 mg/L GA production from simple carbon sources. Similarly, assembling this mutant into a de novo pyrogallol biosynthetic pathway enabled 129 ± 15 mg/L pyrogallol production.

Conclusions

This work established an efficient screening method and generated a high activity PobA mutant. Assembling this mutant into de novo GA and pyrogallol biosynthetic pathways achieved the production of these two compounds from glucose. Besides, this mutant has great potential for the production of GA or pyrogallol derivatives. The screening method could be used for other GA biosynthesis-related enzymes.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s13068-022-02142-w.

Selective Fluorescent Sensing of Adenine Via the Emissive Enhancement of a Simple Cobalt Porphyrin

Porphyrins absorb strongly in the visible region and are also excellent fluorophores that emit in the visible region that make them excellent candidates for fluorescence sensing and in vivo imaging. This work describes the fluorescence determination of adenine using cobalt complex of a simple porphyrin. Tetraphenylporphyrin (TPP) and tetraphenylpophyrinatocobalt(II) (CoTPP) were synthesized and characterised. TPP on metallation with cobalt resulted in the red shift of fluorescence emission in the region 652 nm and 716 nm and showed an enhancement in the emission peaks with the addition of the nucleobase, adenine. CoTPP is found to be an efficient fluorescent sensor for adenine in DMF solvent. The fluorescence enhancement is due to the formation of the ground state complex formation between adenine and CoTPP, which is supported by experimental evidences from UV- visible spectra, time resolved fluorescence life time measurements etc. The detection limit of adenine was found to be 4.2 μM using the CoTPP fluorescent probe. The proposed sensor is found to be highly selective for adenine in presence of other nitrogen bases like guanine, cytosine, uracil, thymine, alanine, histidine etc. in 1:1 concentration.

A “turn-on” fluorescent sensor for cytosine in aqueous media based on diamino-bridged biphenyl acrylonitrile

A “turn-on” fluorescent sensor for cytosine in aqueous media was prepared.

Binding Strength of Nucleobases and Nucleosides on Silver Nanoparticles Probed by a Colorimetric Method

Because of their unique and tunable properties, oligonucleotide-functionalized noble metal nanoparticles have provided a versatile platform for various engineering and biomedical applications. The vast majority of such applications were demonstrated with gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) while only a few were demonstrated with sliver nanoparticles (AgNPs). This is largely due to the lack of robust protocols to functionalize AgNPs with thiol-modified oligonucleotides. Previous studies have revealed strong interactions between nucleobases and AgNPs. This could enable an alternative way to functionalize AgNPs with non-thiolated oligonucleotides. However, there is no quantitative study on the interaction strengths between AgNPs and oligonucleotides. Several methods have been used for quantitative evaluation of the interaction strengths between AuNPs and oligonucleotides. These methods often require specialized equipment that might not be widely accessible or rely on labor-intensive procedures to obtain the adsorption isotherms. Herein, we developed a colorimetric method, as a simple and high-throughput alternative of existing methods, to quantify the binding strength between AgNPs and nucleobases/nucleosides. In this colorimetric method, concentration-dependent destabilizing effects of nucleobase/nucleoside adsorption on AgNPs are utilized to indirectly quantify the amount of nucleobases/nucleosides adsorbed on AgNPs, thus deriving the binding strength between AgNPs and nucleobases/nucleosides. First, the concentration-dependent AgNP aggregation kinetics in the presence of nucleobases/nucleosides were systematically investigated. Then, this colorimetric method was used to determine the binding strengths between AgNPs and various DNA/RNA nucleobases/nucleosides. It was found that the ranking of interaction strengths between AgNPs and DNA/RNA nucleosides (dC < dT < dA, rC < rU < rA) is generally agreed with that between AgNPs and corresponding nucleobases (C < T < U < A). This suggests that DNA/RNA nucleosides interact with AgNPs mainly via the constituent nucleobases. It was also revealed that interactions of AgNPs with DNA/RNA nucleosides are significantly weaker than that with corresponding nucleobases. This implies that deoxyribose/ribose might sterically inhibit the interactions between nucleobases and AuNPs.