The active site of ribokinase from E. coli was rationally modified for the optimization of cascade synthesis of arabinosides
Сascade synthesis of arabinosides is a promising approach for the production of various important antiviral and cancer suppressing drugs. However, the low activity of the cascades first enzyme - ribokinase towards D-arabinose limits the technological feasibility of this approach. Researchers from the lab. of Biopharmaceutical Technologies and lab. of Biosynthesis of Physiologically Active Compounds from the dep. of Biotechnology of IBCh RAS have performed the rational design in the active site of ribokinase from E. coli, resulting in a 15-fold increase in enzyme activity (k cat ) towards D-arabinose through the A98G mutation. The engineered mutant has allowed to decrease the consumption of this enzyme by an order of magnitude with no loss in the efficiency of synthesis of the model arabinoside. The results were published in International Journal of Molecular Sciences (IF=6.208, Q1).
november 14, 2022