Application of the uridine auxotrophic host and synthetic nucleosides for a rapid selection of hydrolases from metagenomic libraries

A high-throughput method (≥ 10⁶ of clones can be analysed on a single agar plate) for the selection of ester-hydrolysing enzymes was developed based on the uridine auxotrophy of Escherichia coli strain DH10B ΔpyrFEC and the acylated derivatives 2′,3′,5′-O-tri-acetyluridine and 2′,3′,5′-O-tri-hexanoyluridine as the sole source of uridine. The proposed approach permits the selection of hydrolases belonging to different families and active towards different substrates. Moreover, the ester group of the substrate used for the selection, at least partly, determined the specificity of the selected enzymes.