Enzymatic assay of D-glucuronate using uronate dehydrogenase

D-Glucuronate is a key metabolite in the process of detoxification of xenobiotics and in a recently constructed synthetic pathway to produce D-glucaric acid, a top value-added chemical from biomass. A simple and specific assay of D-glucuronate Would be useful for studying these processes, but existing assays are either time-consuming or nonspecific. Using Uronate dehydrogenase cloned front Agrobacterium tumefaciens, we developed an assay for D-glucuronate with a detection limit of 5 mu M. This method was shown to be more Suitable for a system with many interfering compounds than previous methods and was also applied to assays for myo-inositol oxygenase activity. (C) 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.