【Frontiers in HaiChuan Chemical Technology】New methanol biotransformation catalyst developed by Tianjin Institute of Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences

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Recently, the Tianjin Institute of Industrial Biotechnology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, made progress in the study of the holoenzyme assembly mechanism of methanol dehydrogenase (MDH), offering a new approach to address the challenge of simultaneously improving both the conversion rate and efficiency in methanol biotransformation technologies. 　　The development of methanol biotransformation technology has long been limited by the lack of methanol oxidoreductases that possess both high energy efficiency and high catalytic rates. To address this challenge, researchers focused on PQQ-dependent methanol dehydrogenase, which naturally possesses excellent efficiency in methanol oxidation and catalytic rate. By rationally reengineering and optimizing the 14-gene biosynthesis cluster, they achieved the heterologous synthesis and proper assembly of this enzyme in Escherichia coli, overcoming the technical bottleneck of previously relying on natural hosts for its isolation and purification. 　　This achievement provides high-performance biocatalysts for methanol biotransformation technology, offering the potential to improve the efficiency and stability of such transformations and to advance this technology toward large-scale industrial application.