Deracemization of 2-Methyl-1,2,3,4-Tetrahydroquinoline Using Mutant Cyclohexylamine Oxidase Obtained by Iterative Saturation Mutagenesis

The current toolkit of biocatalysts for the production of enantiomerically pure chiral amines is largely restricted to amine transaminases, ammonia lyases, or the genetic variants of monoamine oxidase N(MAO-N) from Aspergillus niger. Flavin-dependent amine oxidases have the apparent advantage of using molecular oxygen as a stoichiometric oxidant and their reactions are irreversible. To expand the toolkit and increase the substrate spectrum of a bacterial and flavin-dependent cyclohexylamine oxidase (CHAO) to enable deracemization of secondary amines, saturation mutagenesis of 11 amino acid residues located around the cyclohexanone substrate within a distance of 5 angstrom, followed by iterative saturation mutagenesis of four beneficial mutants, were performed. Screening with 2-methyl-1,2,3,4-tetrahydroquinoline as the substrate generated two improved CHAO variants, T198FL199S and T198FL199SM226F, that exhibited up to 406 times higher catalytic efficiency than the wild-type CHAO. Besides, high stereoselectivity for 2-methyl-1,2,3,4-tetrahydroquinoline and other 2-substituted-1,2,3,4-tetrahydroquinolines was demonstrated. In particular, deracemization of 2-methyl-1,2,3,4-tetrahydroquinoline by Escherichia coli whole cells expressing CHAO mutant T198FL199SM226F led to the production of (R)-2-methyl-1,2,3,4-tetrahydroquinoline with high yield (76%) and enantiomeric excess (ee, 9896). Tetrahydroquinolines are important building blocks of natural and synthetic products useful in the pharmaceutical and agrochemical industries.