A novel serine hydroxymethyltransferase from marine bacterium Alcanivorax sp. and its application on enzymatic synthesis of L-serine.

A novel glyA gene from the marine bacterium Alcanivorax sp. was cloned and expressed in Escherichia coli BL21 (DE3). The recombinant glyA encodes a polypeptide of 418 amino acids, which was designated as AdSHMT that shows the highest identity (70%) with a SHMT from Shewanella algae. The purified enzyme showed a single band at about 45 kDa by SDS-PAGE analysis. It was found that AdSHMT exhibited the maximal activity at 50 °C and pH 7.0. The Km, Vmax, and Kcat values of AdSHMT against dl-threo-3-phenylserine were calculated to be 0.097 mol/L, 3.255 μmol/min/mg and 2.451/s, respectively. More importantly, RP-HPLC detection showed that the AdSHMT achieved an 88.37% molecular conversion rate in catalyzing glycine to l-serine, with the final concentration of l-serine being 353.15 mM in the reaction at 35 °C and 22nd hour when the initial concentration of the substrate (glycine) was 0.399 M. The molecular conversion rate of the AdSHMT from the Alcanivorax sp. was 1.26-fold that of the EcSHMT from the E. coli, which is currently applied in industrial production. Therefore, AdSHMT has the potential for industrial applications due to its high enzymatic conversion rate.