AUTHOR=Yuan Hui , Wu Jiaqi , Wang Xiaoqiang , Chen Jiakuan , Zhong Yang , Huang Qiang , Nan Peng 

TITLE=Computational Identification of Amino-Acid Mutations that Further Improve the Activity of a Chalcone–Flavonone Isomerase from Glycine max

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Plant Science

VOLUME=8

YEAR=2017

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/plant-science/articles/10.3389/fpls.2017.00248

DOI=10.3389/fpls.2017.00248

ISSN=1664-462X

ABSTRACT=<p>Protein design for improving enzymatic activity remains a challenge in biochemistry, especially to identify target amino-acid sites for mutagenesis and to design beneficial mutations for those sites. Here, we employ a computational approach that combines multiple sequence alignment, positive selection detection, and molecular docking to identify and design beneficial amino-acid mutations that further improve the intramolecular-cyclization activity of a chalcone–flavonone isomerase from <italic>Glycine max</italic> (GmCHI). By this approach, two GmCHI mutants with higher activities were predicted and verified. The results demonstrate that this approach could determine the beneficial amino-acid mutations for improving the enzymatic activity, and may find more applications in engineering of enzymes.</p>