A Hydrophilic Metal Azolate Coordination Polymer for In Situ Encapsulation of Haloalkane Dehalogenase with Enhanced...

Encapsulating enzymes within metal-organic frameworks such as zeolitic imidazolate framework-8 (ZIF-8) has been demonstrated to enhance enzymatic performance under harsh conditions. However, by computer-aided analysis, we revealed that highly hydrophobic organic ligands and unfavorable metal ions could greatly impair the activity of haloalkane dehalogenase DhaA by directly interacting with the catalytic sites, causing an extremely low activity of DhaA after encapsulating within ZIF-8. We also found that the presence of a protecting polymer could protect DhaA from the damage of organic ligands and metal ions and that a positively charged amino acid could increase the DhaA activity. Based on the simulations and experimental observations, we have designed to coencapsulate DhaA with poly(vinylpyrrolidone) (PVP) and lysine (Lys) within the amorphous Co-based metal azolate coordination polymer (CoCP). The as-prepared immobilized enzyme (DhaA/PVP/Lys@CoCP) exhibited significantly increased activity (91.5 times higher than that of DhaA@ZIF-8), dramatically enhanced thermostability at 50-70 °C, greatly improved catalytic performance in several organic solvent solutions, and good recyclability (over 75% of the initial activity after 10 cycles). The superiority of the immobilized enzyme was also demonstrated with a substrate frequently detected in the real world. In addition to the protective effect of PVP and positive effect of Lys, experimental and computational investigations unveiled other two favorable aspects that contributed to the enhanced enzymatic performance: (1) high hydrophilicity of the immobilization material and (2) the use of Co²⁺ with a minimal negative effect on DhaA. The research has thus provided a promising immobilized DhaA with favorable catalytic performance and great potential in industrial applications.