% IMPORTANT: The following is UTF-8 encoded. This means that in the presence % of non-ASCII characters, it will not work with BibTeX 0.99 or older. % Instead, you should use an up-to-date BibTeX implementation like “bibtex8” or % “biber”. @PHDTHESIS{Zhu:63710, author = {Zhu, Leilei}, othercontributors = {Schwaneberg, Ulrich}, title = {{D}irected evolution of arginine deiminase ({ADI}) for anti-tumor application}, address = {Aachen}, publisher = {Publikationsserver der RWTH Aachen University}, reportid = {RWTH-CONV-125135}, pages = {IX, 98 : Ill., graph. Darst.}, year = {2010}, note = {Aachen, Techn. Hochsch., Diss., 2010}, abstract = {Arginine deiminase (ADI), an arginine-degrading enzyme, is involved in the first step of arginine dihydrolase pathway. It catalyzes the hydrolysis of L-arginine to form citrulline and ammonia. ADI has been studied as a potential cancer therapeutic agent for the arginine-auxotrophic tumors, such as hepatocellular carcinomas (HCC) and melanomas. Furthermore, studies also indicate that ADI is a potential anti-angiogenic agent; therefore it could become a novel anti-cancer drug targeting the neovascularization-related tumors. Studies show ADI is more potent for the treatment of leukemia than L-asparaginase. However, the anti-tumor application of ADI for therapeutic purpose faces considerable challenges, such as, microbial ADI has low activity at physiological pH (7.35~7.45), short circulating half-life (~5 h) and high antigenicity. Pegylation of ADI improved its efficacy as a clinical drug, including its half-life in serum and antigenicity. The aim of the project is to improve ADI catalytic performance at physiological pH by directed evolution. Protein engineering by rational design and directed evolution offers opportunities to tailor ADI properties to physiological conditions. Directed protein evolution has over the last decades become a versatile and successful approach for tailoring protein properties to industrial demands and for advancing our understanding of structure-function relationships in biocatalysts. Unlike rational design relying on the gathering of extensive structure-function relationships of enzymes, directed evolution is used to reengineer enzyme properties through iterative rounds of diversity generation and function selection for improved variants. In order to improve the ADI activity at physiological pH, we established a directed evolution protocol for this purpose. A microtiter plate (MTP) format colorimetric screening assay based on citrulline detection with diacetyl monoxime (DAM) was developed. Reaction temperature for color development and DAM concentration were optimized to ensure sufficient sensitivity, appropriate linear range and throughput. With the optimized assay and PpADI wild type expressed in E. coli as a model protein, true standard deviation $12.8\%$ was obtained, which is appropriate for the library screening. With the established microtiter plate assay system, for the first time, we reengineered ADI for improved activity at physiological pH (pH 7.4) with higher potency in medical application. After one site directed mutagenesis and one round of epPCR library screening, variant M2 (K5T/D44E/H404R) was obtained. M2 shows 4-fold improved kcat value than the PpADI wild type, a shifted pH optimum at pH 7.0 (by 0.5 pH unit), and however an increased Km value, 3.6-fold under assay conditions (0.5 M sodium phosphate buffer). Low Km (S0.5) value for ADI is an important factor for efficient consume of arginine in plasma because of the low arginine concentration in human plasma (100-120 µM). Therefore after our proof of concept of reengineering PpADI by directed evolution, we aim to decrease the Km value of PpADI towards arginine and improve the kcat furthermore thereby improve the efficiency of arginine depletion by ADI. The established citrulline colorimetric assay in 96-well microtiter plate is improved to reflect application conditions: PBS buffer and 1 mM arginine were used in screening system. After the second round of epPCR library and site directed mutagenesis, variant M5 (K5T/D38H/D44E/A128T/H404R) and M6 (K5T/D38H/D44E/A128T/E296K/H404R) were generated: at pH 7.4 (PBS buffer), the S0.5 value decrease from 2.01 mM (parent M3, K5T/D44E/A128T/H404R) to 1.48 mM (M5) and 0.81 mM (M6). Under physiological pH in PBS buffer, the S0.5 value of M6 (0.81 mM) is lower than that of PpADI wild type (1.30 mM); the kcat value improved from 0.18 s-1 (PpADI wild type) to 17.56 s-1 (M5, 97.6-folds) and 11.64 s-1 (M6, 64.7-fold).}, keywords = {Gerichtete Evolution (SWD)}, cin = {162610 / 160000}, ddc = {570}, cid = {$I:(DE-82)162610_20140620$ / $I:(DE-82)160000_20140620$}, shelfmark = {WF 9720}, typ = {PUB:(DE-HGF)11}, urn = {urn:nbn:de:hbz:82-opus-33679}, url = {https://publications.rwth-aachen.de/record/63710}, }