Enhancement of the activity of enzyme immobilized on polydopamine-coated iron oxide nanoparticles by rational orientation of formate dehydrogenase

Immobilization of enzymes onto nanoparticles and retention of their structure and activity, which may be related to the orientation of enzymes on nanoparticles, remain a challenge. Here, we developed a novel enzyme-orientation strategy to enhance the activity of formate dehydrogenase immobilized on polydopamine-coated iron oxide nanoparticles via site-directed mutation. Seven mutants were constructed based on homology modeling of formate dehydrogenase and immobilized on polydopamine-coated iron oxide nanoparticles to investigate the influence of these mutations on immobilization. The immobilized mutant C242A/C275V/C363V/K389C demonstrated the highest immobilization yield and retained 90% of its initial activity, which was about 3-fold higher than that of wild-type formate dehydrogenase. Moreover, co-immobilization of formate dehydrogenase and leucine dehydrogenase was performed for the synthesis of l-tert-leucine. The catalytic efficiency of the co-immobilized mutant C242A/C275V/C363V/K389C and leucine dehydrogenase increased by more than 4-fold compared to that of co-immobilized wild-type formate dehydrogenase and leucine dehydrogenase.