Comparative Analysis of Three Pairs of Surrogate Redox Partners for in Vitro Activity Reconstitution of Class I Cytochrome P450 Enzymes

Abstract Cytochrome P450 enzymes (P450s) are highly attractive biocatalysts due to their versatile catalytic activities. A vast majority of P450s require redox partner (RP) proteins to sequentially transfer two electrons for O2 activation and substrate oxidation. However, little information is available on cognate RPs for P450s, which greatly limits P450 function exploration and practical application. Thus, the stategy of building various hybrid P450 catalytic systems with surrogate RPs has often adopted to engineer P450 biocatalysts for different purposes. In this study, we comprehensively compare three pairs of frequently-used surrogate redox partners SelFdx1499/SelFdR0978, Adx/AdR and Pdx/PdR and in terms of their electron transfer properties. The three selected bacterial Class I P450s to accept electrons from RPs include PikC, P450sca-2 and CYP-sb21, which are responsible for production of macrolide antibiotics, the cholesterol-lowering drug pravastatin, and a hair-growth-stimulating agent. Both experimental studies and structural analysis show that SelFdx1499/SelFdR0978 is the most promising RP compared to Adx/AdR and Pdx/PdR. The results provide insights into the domination for P450-redox partner interactions in modulating the catalytic activity of P450s. This study not only produces a more active biocatalyst but also suggests a general chose for a universal reductase which would facilitate engineering of P450 catalyst.