Article ID | Journal | Published Year | Pages | File Type |
---|---|---|---|---|
24750 | Journal of Biotechnology | 2009 | 7 Pages |
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 (kcat/Km) and 2-fold increases in kcat 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.