Designer Outer Membrane Protein Facilitates Uptake of Decoy Molecules into a Cytochrome P450BM3‐Based Whole‐Cell Biocatalyst
Masayuki Karasawa, Kai Yonemura, Joshua Kyle Stanfield, Kazuto Suzuki, Osami Shoji
Abstract
We report an OmpF loop deletion mutant, which improves the cellular uptake of external additives into an Escherichia coli whole-cell biocatalyst. Through co-expression of the OmpF mutant with wild-type P450BM3 in the presence of decoy molecules, the yield of the whole-cell biotransformation of benzene could be considerably improved. Notably, with the decoy molecule C7AM-Pip-Phe the yield duodecupled from 5.7 % to 70 %, with 80 % phenol selectivity. The benzylic hydroxylation of alkyl- and cycloalkylbenzenes was also examined, and with the aid of decoy molecules, propylbenzene and tetralin were converted to 1-hydroxylated products with 78 % yield and 94 % (R) ee for propylbenzene and 92 % yield and 94 % (S) ee for tetralin. Our results suggest that both the decoy molecule and substrate traverse the artificial OmpF channel, synergistically boosting whole-cell bioconversions.