Abstract

An enzymatic reaction for the production of D-alanine from D-aspartic acid and pyruvate as substrates by a thermostable D-amino acid aminotransferase (D-AAT) was investigated at various conditions in the temperature range of 40-70 C and pH range of 6.0-9.5. The D-AAT was produced with recombinant E. coli BL21, which hosted the chimeric plasmid pTLK2 harboring the D-AAT from the novel thermophilic Bacillus sp. LK-2. The enzyme reaction was shown to follow the Ping Pong Bi Bi mechanism. The K m values for D-aspartic acid and pyruvate were 4.38 mM and 0.72 mM, respectively. It was observed that competitive inhibition by D-alanine, the product of this reaction, was evident with the inhibition constant K i value of 0.1 mM. A unique feature of this reaction scheme is that the decarboxylation of oxaloacetic acid, one of the products, spontaneously produces pyruvate. Therefore, only a catalytic amount of pyruvate is necessary for the enzyme conversion reaction to proceed. A typical time-course kinetic study showed that D-alanine up to 88 mM could be produced from 100 mM of D-aspartic acid with a molar yield of 1.0.

• Keywords: D-alanine; D-amino acid aminotransferase; D-aspartic acid; competitive inhibition; ping pong mechani