Anderson, J.L.R.

Nat. Commun. 2017, 8, 10.1038/s41467-017-00541-4

Although catalytic mechanisms in natural enzymes are well understood, achieving the diverse palette of reaction chemistries in re-engineered native proteins has proved challenging. Wholesale modification of natural enzymes is potentially compromised by their intrinsic complexity, which often obscures the underlying principles governing biocatalytic efficiency. The maquette approach can circumvent this complexity by combining a robust de novo designed chassis with a design process that avoids atomistic mimicry of natural proteins. Here, we apply this method to the construction of a highly efficient, promiscuous, and thermostable artificial enzyme that catalyzes a diverse array of substrate oxidations coupled to the reduction of H2O2. The maquette exhibits kinetics that match and even surpass those of certain natural peroxidases, retains its activity at elevated temperature and in the presence of organic solvents, and provides a simple platform for interrogating catalytic intermediates common to natural heme-containing enzymes.

Anderson, J.L.R.

J. Inorg. Biochem. 2021, 217, 111370, 10.1016/j.jinorgbio.2021.111370

The design and construction of de novo enzymes offer potentially facile routes to exploiting powerful chemistries in robust, expressible and customisable protein frameworks, while providing insight into natural enzyme function. To this end, we have recently demonstrated extensive catalytic promiscuity in a heme-containing de novo protein, C45. The diverse transformations that C45 catalyses include substrate oxidation, dehalogenation and carbon‑carbon bond formation. Here we explore the substrate promiscuity of C45's peroxidase activity, screening the de novo enzyme against a panel of peroxidase and dehaloperoxidase substrates. Consistent with the function of natural peroxidases, C45 exhibits a broad spectrum of substrate activities with selectivity dictated primarily by the redox potential of the substrate, and by extension, the active oxidising species in peroxidase chemistry, compounds I and II. Though the comparison of these redox potentials provides a threshold for determining activity for a given substrate, substrate:protein interactions are also likely to play a significant role in determining electron transfer rates from substrate to heme, affecting the kinetic parameters of the enzyme. We also used biomolecular simulation to screen substrates against a computational model of C45 to identify potential interactions and binding sites. Several sites of interest in close proximity to the heme cofactor were discovered, providing insight into the catalytic workings of C45.

Anderson, J.L.R.

Curr. Opin. Struct. Biol. 2018, 51, 149-155, 10.1016/j.sbi.2018.04.008

Though established 40 years ago, the field of de novo protein design has recently come of age, with new designs exhibiting an unprecedented level of sophistication in structure and function. With respect to catalysis, de novo enzymes promise to revolutionise the industrial production of useful chemicals and materials, while providing new biomolecules as plug-and-play components in the metabolic pathways of living cells. To this end, there are now de novo metalloenzymes that are assembled in vivo, including the recently reported C45 maquette, which can catalyse a variety of substrate oxidations with efficiencies rivalling those of closely related natural enzymes. Here we explore the successful design of this de novo enzyme, which was designed to minimise the undesirable complexity of natural proteins using a minimalistic bottom-up approach.