Computational Design of D-Lac Enzyme for Enhanced D-Pantothenic Acid Production

D-Lac is crucial for producing D-pantothenic acid, a member of the vitamin B5 family widely used in various industries. However, designing enzymes for D-Lac has been challenging due to the lack of crystal structure information and poorly understood catalytic mechanism. Previous attempts using error-prone PCR and DNA shuffling techniques were not effective. Fortunately, a novel computational design pipeline, the CSFp strategy, has been developed, leading to the discovery of a promising mutant with a 56-fold increase in activity towards D-PL compared to wild-type D-Lac. This approach has the potential to optimize computational enzyme engineering and facilitate its application in situations where improved enzyme activity is required.