D-phenyllactic acid is a value added chemical with potential uses in wide areas of industry such as antibiotics, biopolymers, and pharmaceutical syntheses. It can be reduced from phenylpyruvic acid by various 2-hydroxy acid dehydrogenases. In this work, the 2-hydroxy acid dehydrogenase from Oenococcus oeni has been expressed in Escherichia coli whole cell along with formate dehydrogenases from two difference sources, Candida boidinii and Pseudomonas species, for regeneration of NADH cofactor. This could enhance the conversion of the product up to 78%, 3.4-fold increase from the one without cofactor regeneration, demonstrating a possibility of an efficient D-phenyllactic acid production system. Structural analysis by molecular dynamics simulation indicated the flexibility of the enzyme was lowered when the bound substrate was phenylpyruvic acid, compared to the natural substrate, pyruvate. This can be exploited to design 2-hydroxy acid dehydrogenase to increase the flexibility for phenylpyruvic acid, in order to further improve the production of D-phenyllactic acid.

D-苯基乳酸是一种增值化学品，在抗生素、生物聚合物和药物合成等广泛的工业领域具有潜在用途。它可以通过各种 2-羟基酸脱氢酶从苯基丙酮酸中还原。在这项工作中，来自Oenococcus oeni的 2-羟基酸脱氢酶与来自两种不同来源的甲酸脱氢酶一起在大肠杆菌全细胞中表达，Candida boidinii和Pseudomonas物种，用于再生 NADH 辅因子。这可以将产物的转化率提高至 78%，比没有辅因子再生的转化率提高 3.4 倍，证明了高效 D-苯基乳酸生产系统的可能性。分子动力学模拟的结构分析表明，与天然底物丙酮酸相比，当结合底物是苯基丙酮酸时，酶的灵活性降低。这可用于设计2-羟基酸脱氢酶以增加苯基丙酮酸的灵活性，以进一步提高D-苯基乳酸的产量。