Semi-Rational Engineering of Leucine Dehydrogenase for L-2-Aminobutyric Acid Production.

L-2-aminobutyric acid (L-ABA) as a precursor for the anticonvulsant and the antituberculotic is a key intermediate in the chemical and pharmaceutical industries. Recently, leucine dehydrogenase (LeuDH) with NAD regeneration was developed for L-ABA production on a large scale. Previously, the L-ABA yield was improved by optimizing conversion conditions, including cofactor regeneration and enzyme immobilization but not protein engineering on LeuDH due to lacking an applicable high-throughput screening (HTS) method.

A high-throughput screening method for amino acid dehydrogenase.

A simple and rapid screening method for amino acid dehydrogenase (e.g., leucine dehydrogenase, LDH) has been developed.