Directed evolution of RhlI to generate new and increased quorum sensing signal molecule catalytic activities

Quorum sensing is a population density-dependent gene expression regulation mechanism in bacteria. The substrate specificity of RhlI, an enzyme in the RhlI-RhlR quorum sensing system of Pseudomonas aeruginosa, was explored by directed evolution to gain insight into the molecular mechanisms of quorum sensing. RhlI catalyzes S-adenosyl methionine and butanoyl or hexanoyl acyl carrier protein to form N-butanoyl homoserine lactone (BHL) and or N-hexanoyl homoserine lactone (HHL), respectively, none of which contain 3-oxo groups. We developed high-throughput genetic screening and selection methods to identify RhlI mutants via four rounds of directed evolution and identified RhlI-4M1 as the mutant that generated new catalytic activity and synthesized 3-oxo-hexanoyl homoserine lactone (OHHL) containing the 3-oxo group in Escherichia coli. Additionally, the synthesizing activities of BHL and HHL were improved by 3.98- and 3.01-fold, respectively. RhlI-4M1 contains five amino acid substitutions (A15D, K31R, T92S, Y129N, and L184Q) and one stop codon (Q193*) mutations. The deletion of nine amino acids in the C-terminus was crucial for OHHL production by RhlI mutants. This work demonstrates that the genetic screen/selection should be useful in the development of applications involving the manipulation of bacterial quorum sensing. The new catalytic activity of these RhlI mutants will prove beneficial in elucidating the mechanistic understanding of bacterial quorum sensing and similarly, may prove beneficial in the development of new drugs including antimicrobial compounds.