L-Pipecolic acid is a key component of biologically active molecules and a pharmaceutically important chiral building block. It can be stereoselectively produced from L-lysine by a two-step bioconversion involving L-lysine α-oxidase and ∆ -piperideine-2-carboxylae (Pip2C) reductase. In this study， we focused on an L-lysine α-oxidase from Scomber japonicus that was originally identified as an apoptosis-inducing protein (AIP) and applied the enzyme to one-pot fermentation of L-pipecolic acid in Escherichia coli. A synthetic gene coding for an AIP was expressed in E. coli， and the recombinant enzyme was purified and characterized. The purified enzyme was determined to be a homodimer with a molecular mass o... More
L-Pipecolic acid is a key component of biologically active molecules and a pharmaceutically important chiral building block. It can be stereoselectively produced from L-lysine by a two-step bioconversion involving L-lysine α-oxidase and ∆ -piperideine-2-carboxylae (Pip2C) reductase. In this study， we focused on an L-lysine α-oxidase from Scomber japonicus that was originally identified as an apoptosis-inducing protein (AIP) and applied the enzyme to one-pot fermentation of L-pipecolic acid in Escherichia coli. A synthetic gene coding for an AIP was expressed in E. coli， and the recombinant enzyme was purified and characterized. The purified enzyme was determined to be a homodimer with a molecular mass of 133.9 kDa. The enzyme essentially exhibited the same substrate specificity as the native enzyme. Optimal temperature and pH for the enzymatic reaction were 70 °C and 7.4， respectively. The enzyme was stable below 60 °C and at a pH range of 5.5-7.5 but was markedly inhibited by Co(2+). To establish a one-pot fermentation system for the synthesis of optically pure L-pipecolic acid from DL-lysine， an E. coli strain carrying a plasmid encoding AIP， Pip2C reductase from Pseudomonas putida， lysine racemase from P. putida， and glucose dehydrogenase from Bacillus subtilis was constructed. The one-pot process produced 45.1 g/L of L-pipecolic acid (87.4 % yield from DL-lysine) after a 46-h reaction with high optical purity (>99.9 % enantiomeric excess).
