Direct monitoring of biocatalytic deacetylation of amino acid substrates by ~1H NMR reveals fine details of substrate specificity

摘要

Amino acids are key synthetic building blocks that can be prepared in an enantiopure form by biocatalytic methods. We show that the L-selective ornithine deacetylase ArgE catalyses hydrolysis of a wide-range of N-acyl-amino acid substrates. This activity was revealed by ~1H NMR spectroscopy that monitored the appearance of the well resolved signal of the acetate product. Furthermore, the assay was used to probe the subtle structural selectivity of the biocatalyst using a substrate that could adopt different rotameric conformations.