Expression and Characterization of a New L-amino Acid Oxidase AAO Producing α-ketoglutaric Acid from L-glutamic Acid

L-amino acid oxidase (AAO) was reported to be capable of converting L-glutamic acid to α-aketoglutaric acid (α-KG). The sequence of AAO from Kitasatospora cheerisanensis was synthesized based on Pichia pastoris codon-usage preferences. AAO gene was cloned into plasmid pPICZα which was transformed into P. pastoris. Next, multi-copy expression plasmids were constructed by using plasmid pHBM905BDM. High-density fermentation was performed and the recombinant enzyme was characterized. The conversion conditions were optimized. By using Escherichia coli expression system, no soluble or active AAO was obtained from two strains after fermentation and induction. We can’t obtain high-level expression of recombinant strains by using plasmid pPICZα. Therefore, we constructed multi-copy expression plasmids using plasmid pHBM905BDM. By using this plasmid, multi-copy strains were constructed and named as PAAO1, PAAO2, PAAO3, PAAO4, and PAAO5, respectively. The following results showed that expression of AAO in multicopy strains increased as designed and strain PAAO5 was chosen for high-density fermentation and enzyme activity experiments. After high-density fermentation, we achieved an AAO-expression yield of 120.8 U/mL. After temperature and pH optimization, the highest AAO activity was observed at a temperature and pH of 20°C and 6, respectively. After optimization of the conversion conditions, the average production rate of L-glutamic acid to α-KG was 3.46 g/L/h and the highest α-KG titer (103 g/L) was converted from 120 g/L L-glutamic acid. In this study, AAO was abundantly expressed by using P. pastoris expression system. The following experiments indicated that AAO is suitable for use in industrial applications.