Design and application of a novel high-throughput screening technique for 1-deoxynojirimycin

High-throughput screening techniques for small molecules can find intensive applications in the studies of biosynthesis of these molecules. A sensitive, rapid and cost-effective technique that allows high-throughput screening of endogenous production of the natural iminosugar 1-deoxynojirimycin (1-DNJ), an α-glucosidase inhibitor relevant to the pharmaceutical industry, was developed in this study, based on the inhibitory effects of 1-DNJ on the activity of the β-glycosidase LacS from Sulfolobus solfataricus. This technique has been demonstrated effective in engineering both the key enzyme and the expression levels of enzymes in the 1-DNJ biosynthetic pathway from Bacillus atrophaeus cloned in E. coli. Higher biosynthetic efficiency was achieved using directed evolution strategies.