title: The activity of human CYP2D6 in low water organic solvents.
abstract: P450 enzymes are of high interest for synthetic applications due to their ability to catalyze hydroxylation reactions at inactivated C-H bonds. The low solubility of many substrates in buffer, however, is limiting the applications of P450s. Our recent demonstration that the P450 enzymes CYP2D6 and CYP3A4 can function very well in biphasic solvent systems is one step towards overcoming this drawback, but is not practical when substrates or products are unstable in water, or with water-soluble products. An alternative strategy, which also facilitates enzyme recycling, is to directly resuspend lyophilized enzyme into nearly anhydrous organic solvents. Interestingly, we report here that CYP2D6 colyophilized with trehalose and suspended in n-decane shows higher activity than in aqueous buffer. This study demonstrates the unexpected high tolerance of CYP2D6 to some low water organic solvents and provides an alternative strategy to facilitate the use of this enzyme in synthesis.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, McGill University, 801 Sherbrooke Street West, Montréal, Québec H3A2K6, Canada.
authors.forename: Jin
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Zhao
authors.forename: Karine
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Auclair
mesh_terms: D000473:Alkanes; D001709:Biotechnology / Q000379:methods*; D019389:Cytochrome P-450 CYP2D6 / Q000378:metabolism*; D012996:Solutions; D012997:Solvents
chemical_list: D000473:Alkanes; D012996:Solutions; D012997:Solvents; D019389:Cytochrome P-450 CYP2D6; C012867:decane