An enzymatic method to estimate the content of L-hydroxyproline

Post-translational hydroxylation of the L-proline residue mainly occurs in collagen; therefore, the L-hydroxyprolines (L-Hyp) synthesized, including trans-4-hydroxy-L-proline (T4LHyp) and trans-3-hydroxy-L-proline (T3LHyp), are important markers for directly measuring the content of collagen in several biological samples. The most frequently used method to estimate the content of L-Hyp is high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), which is inconvenient. In the present study, we attempted to estimate the content of L-Hyp using coupling systems with metabolic enzymes of the T4LHyp (hydroxyproline 2-epimerase (HypE) and cis-4-hydroxy-D-proline dehydrogenase (HypDH)) and T3LHyp pathways (T3LHyp dehydratase (T3LHypD) and Δ1-pyrroline-2-carboxylate reductase (Pyr2CR)) from microorganisms. We constructed a functional expression system of recombinant HypDH with a heterooligomeric structure in Escherichia coli cells. Enzymological characterization revealed that the β-subunit acted as a catalytic subunit, and also that assembly with other subunit(s) improved the kinetics for cis-4-hydroxy-D-proline and thermostability. By using a spectrophotometric assay with different wavelengths, the contents of T4LHyp and T3LHyp were successfully estimated within the ranges of 0.004-1 mM and 0.05-1 mM, respectively, and were consistent with those determined by HPLC. This enzymatic method was used to measure the content of T4LHyp in the acid-hydrolysate of collagen, and blood plasma.