High-throughput screening technologies for enzyme engineering

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High-throughput screening for gene libraries expressing carbohydrate hydrolase activity

A simple and fast method is described allowing screening of large number of Escherichia coli clones (4000 per day) for the presence of functional or improved carbohydrate hydrolase enzymes. The procedure is relatively cheap and has the advantage that carbohydrate degrading activity can be directly measured using liquid cultures grown in microtiter plates without the need of separation or purification steps.     

High-throughput screening and characterization of clones selected from phage display libraries.

BACKGROUND: Clones from phage display libraries are generally selected by a number of rounds of panning and regrowth, followed by primary screening to identify hits and secondary characterization to identify clones with optimal affinity and specificity. Because functional screening for binding or other activity can be material-, time-, and labor-intensive, sequencing is often used to identify the emergence of a consensus sequence prior functional characterization. However, the consensus sequence is not always the optimal one because factors such as phage growth rates, nonspecific binding, and other selection pressures can bias the selection process. METHODS: To improve function-based phage display library screening and characterization, we developed a multiplexed approach employing optically-encoded microsphere arrays and flow cytometry. RESULTS: We show that capture of phage from crude culture supernatants enables the efficient screening of binding activity and the evaluation of binding avidity. The approach uses small volumes and a homogeneous no-wash format that minimizes reagent consumption and sample handling. The use of optically-encoded microspheres allows many phage to be screened simultaneously, greatly increasing throughput. CONCLUSIONS: This approach is flexible, supporting primary and secondary screening for a range of functional assays, and scalable, potentially supporting the screening of thousands to hundreds of thousands of clones per hour.     

High-throughput RNA interference screening using pooled shRNA libraries and next generation sequencing

RNA interference (RNAi) screening is a state-of-the-art technology that enables the dissection of biological processes and disease-related phenotypes. The commercial availability of genome-wide, short hairpin RNA (shRNA) libraries has fueled interest in this area but the generation and analysis of these complex data remain a challenge. Here, we describe complete experimental protocols and novel open source computational methodologies, shALIGN and shRNAseq, that allow RNAi screens to be rapidly deconvoluted using next generation sequencing. Our computational pipeline offers efficient screen analysis and the flexibility and scalability to quickly incorporate future developments in shRNA library technology.     

High-throughput screening of enzyme inhibitors: simultaneous determination of tight-binding inhibition constants and enzyme concentration

Active site titration by a reversible tight-binding inhibitor normally depends on prior knowledge of the inhibition constant. Conversely, the determination of tight-binding inhibition constants normally requires prior knowledge of the active enzyme concentration. Often, neither of these quantities is known with sufficient accuracy. This paper describes experimental conditions under which both the enzyme active site concentration and the tight-binding inhibition constant can be determined simultaneously from a single dose-response curve. Representative experimental data are shown for the inhibition of human kallikrein.     

一种3-氰基吡啶水解酶产生菌的高通量筛选策略及应用

利用改进的羟肟酸铁分光光度比色法建立了一种简单、快速、高通量的腈水解酶筛选方法.应用该方法从土壤中筛选获得1株具有3-氰基吡啶水解酶活性的菌株CCZU10 -1,经16S rDNA序列分析,鉴定该菌为红球菌属Rhodococcus sp.;同时确定了最适反应温度、pH和金属离子添加剂分别为30℃、7.0和Ca2+ (0.1 mmol/L).在最适催化反应条件下,催化转化50 mmol/L烟腈36 h,烟酸的产率可达到93.5％.     

High-throughput screening of enzyme inhibitors: automatic determination of tight-binding inhibition constants

Determination of tight-binding inhibition constants by nonlinear least-squares regression requires sufficiently good initial estimates of the best-fit values. Normally an initial estimate of the inhibition constant must be provided by the investigator. This paper describes an automatic procedure for the estimation of tight-binding inhibition constants directly from dose-response data. Because the procedure does not require human intervention, it was incorporated into an algorithm for high-throughput screening of enzyme inhibitors. A suitable computer program is available electronically (http://www.biokin.com). Representative experimental data are shown for the inhibition of human mast-cell tryptase.     

High-throughput enzyme screening platform for the IPP-bypass mevalonate pathway for isopentenol production

Isopentenol (or isoprenol, 3-methyl-3-buten-1-ol) is a drop-in biofuel and a precursor for commodity chemicals such as isoprene. Biological production of isopentenol via the mevalonate pathway has been optimized extensively in Escherichia coli, yielding 70% of its theoretical maximum. However, high ATP requirements and isopentenyl diphosphate (IPP) toxicity pose immediate challenges for engineering bacterial strains to overproduce commodities utilizing IPP as an intermediate. To overcome these limitations, we developed an “IPP-bypass” isopentenol pathway using the promiscuous activity of a mevalonate diphosphate decarboxylase (PMD) and demonstrated improved performance under aeration-limited conditions. However, relatively low activity of PMD toward the non-native substrate (mevalonate monophosphate, MVAP) was shown to limit flux through this new pathway. By inhibiting all IPP production from the endogenous non-mevalonate pathway, we developed a high-throughput screening platform that correlated promiscuous PMD activity toward MVAP with cellular growth. Successful identification of mutants that altered PMD activity demonstrated the sensitivity and specificity of the screening platform. Strains with evolved PMD mutants and the novel IPP-bypass pathway increased titers up to 2.4-fold. Further enzymatic characterization of the evolved PMD variants suggested that higher isopentenol titers could be achieved either by altering residues directly interacting with substrate and cofactor or by altering residues on nearby α-helices. These altered residues could facilitate the production of isopentenol by tuning either k_cat or K_i of PMD for the non-native substrate. The synergistic modification made on PMD for the IPP-bypass mevalonate pathway is expected to significantly facilitate the industrial scale production of isopentenol.     

Enzyme family-specific and activity-based screening of chemical libraries using enzyme microarrays

The potential of protein microarrays in high-throughput screening (HTS) still remains largely unfulfilled, essentially because of the difficulty of extracting meaningful, quantitative data from such experiments. In the particular case of enzyme microarrays, low-molecular-weight fluorescent affinity labels (FALs) can function as ideally suited activity probes of the microarrayed enzymes. FALs form covalent bonds with enzymes in an activity-dependent manner and therefore can be used to characterize enzyme activity at each enzyme's address, as predetermined by the microarraying process. Relying on this principle, we introduce herein thematic enzyme microarrays (TEMA). In a kinetic setup we used TEMAs to determine the full set of kinetic constants and the reaction mechanism between the microarrayed enzymes (the theme of the microarray) and a family-wide FAL. Based on this kinetic understanding, in an HTS setup we established the practical and theoretical methodology for quantitative, multiplexed determination of the inhibition profile of compounds from a chemical library against each microarrayed enzyme. Finally, in a validation setup, K(i)(app) values and inhibitor profiles were confirmed and refined.     

High-throughput screening for biocatalysts

Recent progress in high-throughput enzyme assays includes new examples of fluorogenic and chromogenic substrates, fluorescence resonance energy transfer substrates, and applications of the pH and pM indicator methods. Recent developments of Horeau's pseudo-enantiomer derivatisation method to screen enantioselectivities in high-throughput have also been reported.     

High-throughput screening of potassium-competitive acid blockers

H(+),K(+)-ATPase is a key enzyme in the process of gastric acid secretion, and proton pump inhibitors (PPIs) have been accepted as one of the most effective treatments for peptic ulcer and gastroesophageal reflux disease. To discover a novel class of PPIs, the authors screened a low-molecular-weight compound library and identified two prospective acid blockers that were pyrrole derivatives. Both compounds inhibited H(+),K(+)-ATPase in a reversible and potassium-competitive manner. These compounds led to the development of TAK-438 (1-[5-(2-fluorophenyl)-1-(pyridin-3-ylsulfonyl)-1H-pyrrol-3-yl]-N-methylmethanamine monofumarate), which is currently undergoing clinical trials as a novel potassium-competitive acid blocker for the treatment of acid-related diseases.     

High-throughput screening of soluble recombinant proteins

The aims of high-throughput (HTP) protein production systems are to obtain well-expressed and highly soluble proteins, which are preferred candidates for use in structure-function studies. Here, we describe the development of an efficient and inexpensive method for parallel cloning, induction, and cell lysis to produce multiple fusion proteins in Escherichia coli using a 96-well format. Molecular cloning procedures, used in this HTP system, require no restriction digestion of the PCR products. All target genes can be directionally cloned into eight different fusion protein expression vectors using two universal restriction sites and with high efficiency (>95%). To screen for well-expressed soluble fusion protein, total cell lysates of bacteria culture ( approximately 1.5 mL) were subjected to high-speed centrifugation in a 96-tube format and analyzed by multiwell denaturing SDS-PAGE. Our results thus far show that 80% of the genes screened show high levels of expression of soluble products in at least one of the eight fusion protein constructs. The method is well suited for automation and is applicable for the production of large numbers of proteins for genome-wide analysis.     

High-throughput characterization and quality control of small-molecule combinatorial libraries

To fully realize the potential of combinatorial synthesis and high-throughput screening for increasing the efficiency of the drug discovery and development process, issues related to compound purity must be addressed. Impurities, often present after synthesis, can lead to ambiguous screening results and inhibit the development of quality structure-activity relationships. The demand for high-throughput analytical characterization of combinatorial libraries has prompted the development of more rapid methods to keep pace with compound production. Recent progress has focused upon the development of parallel separation methods, multiplexed detector interfaces, and synergistic combinations of different detectors possessing complementary selectivities.     

High-throughput screening for enhanced protein stability

High thermostability of proteins is a prerequisite for their implementation in biocatalytic processes and in the evolution of new functions. Various protein engineering methods have been applied to the evolution of increased thermostability, including the use of combinatorial design where a diverse library of proteins is generated and screened for variants with increased stability. Current trends are toward the use of data-driven methods that reduce the library size by using available data to choose areas of the protein to target, without specifying the precise changes. For example, the half-lives of subtilisin and a Bacillus subtilis lipase were increased 1500-fold and 300-fold, respectively, using a crystal structure to guide mutagenesis choices. Sequence homology based methods have also produced libraries where 50% of the variants have improved thermostability. Moreover, advances in the high-throughput measurement of denaturation curves and the application of selection methods to thermostability evolution have enabled the screening of larger libraries. The combination of these methods will lead to the rapid improvement of protein stability for biotechnological purposes.