Identification of amino acid residues involved in 4-chloroindole 3-hydroxylation by cytochrome P450 2A6 using screening of random libraries.

Zhi-Gang Zhang, Yan Liu, F Peter Guengerich, Johannes H Matse, Jun Chen, Zhong-Liu Wu

Index: J. Biotechnol. 139(1) , 12-8, (2009)

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Abstract

Cytochrome P450 (P450) 2A6 is able to catalyze indole hydroxylation to form the blue dye indigo. The wild-type P450 2A6 enzyme was randomly mutated throughout the whole open reading frame and screened using 4-chloroindole hydroxylation, a substituted indole selected from 30 indole compounds for enhanced color development. Mutants with up to 5-fold increases of catalytic efficiency (k(cat)/K(m)) and 2-fold increases in k(cat) were selected after two rounds of screening. Important residues located both in (e.g., Thr305) and outside the active site (e.g., Ser224) were identified. The study utilized a better substrate for "indigo assay" to obtain new information on the structure-functional relationship of P450 2A6 that was not revealed by previous mutagenesis studies with this enzyme.