Exploiting the biocatalytic potential of co-expressed l-fucose isomerase and d-tagatose 3-epimerase for the biosynthesis of 6-deoxy-l-sorbose.

6-Deoxy-l-sorbose (6-DLS) is an imperative rare sugar employed in food, agriculture, pharmaceutical and cosmetic industeries. However, it is a synthetic and very expensive rare sugars, previously synthesized by chemo-enzymatic methods through a long chain of chemical processes. Recently, enzymatic synthesis of rare sugars has attracted a lot of attention due to its advantages over synthetic methods. In this work, a promising approach for the synthesis of 6-DLS from an inexpensive sugar l-fucose was identified. The genes for l-fucose isomerase from Paenibacillus rhizosphaerae (Pr-LFI) and genes for d-tagatose-3-epimerase from Caballeronia fortuita (Cf-DTE) have been used for cloning and co-expression in Escherichia coli, developed a recombinant plasmid harboring pANY1-Pr-LFI/Cf-DTE vector. The recombinant co-expression system exhibited an optimum activity at 50 °C of temperature and pH 6.5 in the presence of Co2+ metal ion which inflated the catalytic activity by 6.8 folds as compared to control group with no metal ions. The recombinant co-expressed system was stable up to more than 50 % relative activity after 12 h and revealed a melting temperature (Tm) of 63.38 °C exhibiting half-life of 13.17 h at 50 °C. The co-expression system exhibited, 4.93, 11.41 and 16.21 g/L of 6-DLS production from initial l-fucose concentration of 30, 70 and 100 g/L, which equates to conversion yield of 16.44 %, 16.30 % and 16.21 % respectively. Generally, this study offers a promising strategy for the biological production of 6-DLS from an inexpensive substrate l-fucose in slightly acidic conditions with the aid of co-expression system harboring Pr-LFI and CF-DTE genes.

Biochemical characterization of recombinant L-fucose isomerase from Caldanaerobius polysaccharolyticus for L-fuculose production.

L-fuculose is a rare sugar that is useful for the agriculture and medicine industries. L-fucose isomerase (E.C.5.3.1.25), which is an aldose-ketose isomerase, plays a significant role in producing rare sugars. A recommended L-fucose isomerase gene was cloned from Caldanaerobius polysaccharolyticus and purified with a single band of 65 kDa using nickel-affinity chromatography, with a specific activity of 108.23 U mg-1. The native molecular mass existed with 214 kDa was a trimer. The purified enzyme showed a maximum activity in 1 mM Mn2+ at 55 °C and pH 6.5 with a melting temperature (Tm) of 80.3 °C in the presence of one molecule per monomer. L-fucose isomerase from C. polysaccharolyticus (Capo-LfIase) exhibited the highest activity of L-fucose with Km, kcat and Kcat/km values of 94.2 mM, 23854 min-1 and 253.3 min-1 mM-1, respectively. Capo-LfIase showed more than 50% thermostability after 20 h of incubation at 45, 55, 65, 75 and 85 °C. The 9 putative active site residues of the L-fucose substrate were described using a homology model, and the results showed that Tyr440, Met185, Trp499 and Asn527 are the candidates of metal-binding residues, while Ser393, Glu337, Glu302, His528 and Asp361 would be involved in substrate binding. The conversion rate of L-fuculose from L-fucose was almost 28.2%, with 80 g L-1 L-fucose, and no byproduct was found. To the best of our knowledge, Capo-LfIase produces high yield of L-fuculose from L-fucose by enzymatic methods.