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Current state and future perspectives of engineered and artificial peroxygenases for the oxyfunctionalization of organic molecules

Nature Catalysis volume 3, pages 690–702 (2020)Cite this article

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Abstract

Peroxygenases are attractive biocatalysts for the selective introduction of oxygen into organic molecules under mild conditions with hydrogen peroxide as the oxygen source. In addition to the identification of primary peroxygenases, different classes of enzymes were shown to display promiscuous peroxygenase activity. Even though enzymes with peroxygenase activity are promising industrial biocatalysts, further optimization of their properties is required for their effective use in industrial applications. Here we give a comprehensive overview of enzymes with peroxygenase activity and review diverse strategies, including directed evolution, rational approaches and the assistance of small functional molecules to improve the expression, catalytic activity, substrate scope or selectivity of these promising enzymes. Furthermore, we discuss the exploration of modified or unnatural cofactors to design artificial peroxygenases for desired reactions. The rapidly expanding field of hydrogen peroxide-utilizing enzymes bears a great potential to provide biocatalysts for selective oxyfunctionalization chemistry, contributing to the development of environmentally friendly and sustainable oxidation processes.

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Fig. 1: Overview of the cofactor usage of natural enzymes with peroxygenase activity and artificial peroxyzymes.
Fig. 2: Selected examples of peroxygenation reactions catalysed by enzymes with peroxygenase activity.
Fig. 3: Catalytic mechanism of (per-)oxygenation reactions catalysed by haem-thiolate enzymes.
Fig. 4: Acid–base catalytic residues in the active site of haem-thiolate enzymes.
Fig. 5: Rational strategies for the engineering of P450 monooxygenases towards enhanced peroxygenase activity.

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Acknowledgements

We acknowledge financial support from the Netherlands Organization of Scientific Research (VICI grant 724.016.002), the European Research Council under the European Community’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013)/ERC Grant agreement no. 242293, and the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska–Curie grant agreement no. 722390.

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  1. Department of Chemical and Pharmaceutical Biology, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands

    Marie-Cathérine Sigmund & Gerrit J. Poelarends

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M.-C.S. examined data for the article, wrote the manuscript and prepared the figures. Both M.-C.S. and G.J.P. contributed to the discussion, reviewing and editing of the manuscript before submission.

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Sigmund, MC., Poelarends, G.J. Current state and future perspectives of engineered and artificial peroxygenases for the oxyfunctionalization of organic molecules. Nat Catal 3, 690–702 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41929-020-00507-8

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