Identification of Novel L-Amino Acid α-Ligases through Hidden Markov Model-Based Profile Analysis

Abstract

L-Amino acid α-ligase (Lal), catalyzing the formation of α-dipeptides from unprotected L-amino acids in an ATP-dependent manner, is used in cost-effective fermentative production of dipeptides. We searched for novel Lals by in silico screening using Hidden Markov Model-based profile analysis, and identified five novel Lals that showed low similarity and different substrate specificity from known Lals.