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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jun 26, 2025

Synthesis of a Borylated Ibuprofen Derivative Through Suzuki Cross-Coupling and Alkene Boracarboxylation Reactions

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Published on: November 30, 2022

Boron catalysis in a designer enzyme.

Lars Longwitz¹, Reuben B Leveson-Gower¹, Henriëtte J Rozeboom²

¹Stratingh Institute for Chemistry, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands.

|May 8, 2024

Summary

Scientists created a novel designer enzyme using genetic-code expansion. This enzyme incorporates a boronic acid moiety, enabling new chemical reactions and achieving high enantioselectivity for various substrates.

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Published on: January 17, 2020

Area of Science:

Biochemistry
Synthetic Biology
Organic Chemistry

Background:

Enzymes are crucial for sustainable chemical production but have limited reaction mechanisms.
Expanding enzyme capabilities requires incorporating non-biological functionalities.
Current biocatalysis is constrained by the narrow range of natural enzyme reactions.

Purpose of the Study:

To create a genetically encoded enzyme with non-natural organocatalytic activity.
To develop a designer enzyme capable of reactions beyond nature's scope.
To demonstrate the potential of genetic-code expansion for programmable biocatalysis.

Main Methods:

Genetic-code expansion to incorporate a boronic acid into a protein.
Directed evolution to enhance enzyme activity and selectivity.
X-ray crystallography, HRMS, and 11B NMR spectroscopy for structural and mechanistic analysis.

Main Results:

A novel boronic-acid-containing enzyme was successfully synthesized and genetically encoded.
The enzyme catalyzed the kinetic resolution of hydroxyketones via oxime formation.
Directed evolution yielded a variant with natural-enzyme-like enantioselectivities.
The enzyme's unique activation mode was structurally and spectroscopically confirmed.

Conclusions:

Genetic-code expansion enables the creation of designer enzymes with xenobiotic catalytic groups.
Boron-containing enzymes can access novel reaction mechanisms not achievable by natural enzymes.
This approach opens new avenues for enantioselective biocatalysis and programmable enzyme design.