Nearly aqueous-like activity of lipoprotein lipase treated with glucose-headed surfactant in organic solvent

Abstract

In this work, we explored the activation of a lipoprotein lipase from Burkholderia species by glucose-headed surfactants (GHSs) for enhancing its catalytic activity in organic solvent. Three GHSs were prepared and then tested as the additives for inducing the activation of lipoprotein lipase. The kinetic parameters of GHS-treated lipoprotein lipase were determined for the hydrolysis or alcoholysis of p-nitrophenyl acetate. It was found that GHS-treated lipoprotein lipase was 4 to 5 orders of magnitude more active than its native counterpart in organic solvent. Such a dramatic activity enhancement was largely the result of a huge increase in the turnover frequency k_cat. Surprisingly, the k_cat values in organic solvent were one order of magnitude greater than their aqueous counterparts. As a result, the k_cat/K_m of GHS-treated lipoprotein lipase in organic solvent became comparable to the aqueous level within one order of magnitude. We thus have demonstrated for the first time that a lipase can display nearly aqueous-like activity in organic solvent. As an illustrative application of GHS-treated lipoprotein lipase, we performed the dynamic kinetic resolution of two secondary alcohols, which provided the products of high enantiopurity (98–99%ee) with high yields (90–91%).