Active Site Engineering of the Epoxide Hydrolase from Agrobacterium radiobacter AD1 to Enhance Aerobic Mineralization of cis-1,2-Dichloroethylene in Cells Expressing an Evolved Toluene ortho-Monooxygenase*

Chlorinated ethenes are the most prevalent ground-water pollutants, and the toxic epoxides generated during their aerobic biodegradation limit the extent of transformation. Hydrolysis of the toxic epoxide by epoxide hydrolases represents the major biological detoxification strategy; however, chlorinated epoxyethanes are not accepted by known bacterial epoxide hydrolases. Here, the epoxide hydrolase from Agrobacterium radiobacter AD1 (EchA), which enables growth on epichlorohydrin, was tuned to accept cis-1,2-dichloroepoxyethane as a substrate by accumulating beneficial mutations from three rounds of saturation mutagenesis at three selected active site residues, Phe-108, Ile-219, and Cys-248 (no beneficial mutations were found at position Ile-111). The EchA F108L/I219L/C248I variant coexpressed with a DNA-shuffled toluene ortho-monooxygenase, which initiates attack on the chlorinated ethene, enhanced the degradation of cis-dichloroethylene (cis-DCE) an infinite extent compared with wild-type EchA at low concentrations (6.8 μm) and up to 10-fold at high concentrations (540 μm). EchA variants with single mutations (F108L, I219F, or C248I) enhanced cis-DCE mineralization 2.5-fold (540 μm), and EchA variants with double mutations, I219L/C248I and F108L/C248I, increased cis-DCE mineralization 4- and 7-fold, respectively (540 μm). For complete degradation of cis-DCE to chloride ions, the apparent V_max/K_m for the Escherichia coli strain expressing recombinant the EchA F108L/I219L/C248I variant was increased over 5-fold as a result of the evolution of EchA. The EchA F108L/I219L/C248I variant also had enhanced activity for 1,2-epoxyhexane (2-fold) and the natural substrate epichlorohydrin (6-fold).