Distributions of enzyme residues yielding mutants with improved substrate specificities from two different directed evolution strategies.

A previous study of random mutations, mostly introduced by error-prone PCR (EPPCR) or DNA shuffling (DS), demonstrated that those closer to the enzyme active site were more effective than distant ones at improving enzyme activity, substrate specificity or enantioselectivity. Since then, many studies have taken advantage of this observation by targeting site-directed saturation mutagenesis (SDSM) to residues closer to or within enzyme active sites. Here, we have analysed a set of SDSM studies, in parallel to a similar set from EPPCR/DS, to determine whether the greater range of amino-acid types accessible by SDSM affects the distances at which the most effective sites occur. We have also analysed the relative effectiveness for obtaining beneficial mutants of residues with different degrees of natural sequence variation, as determined by their sequence entropy which is related to sequence conservation. These analyses attempt to answer the question-how well focused have targeted mutagenesis strategies been? We also compared two different sets of active-site atoms from which to measure distances and found that the inclusion of catalytic, substrate and cofactor atoms refined the analysis compared to using a single key catalytic atom. Using this definition, we found that EPPCR/DS is not effective for altering substrate specificity at sites that are within 5 A of the active-site atoms. In contrast, SDSM is most effective when targeted to residues at <5-6 A from the catalytic, substrate or cofactor atom, and also for residues with intermediate sequence entropies. Furthermore, SDSM is capable of altering substrate specificity at highly and completely conserved residues in the active site. The results suggest ways in which directed evolution by SDSM could be improved for greater efficiency in terms of reducing the library sizes required to obtain beneficial mutations that alter substrate specificity.