Recyclable Whole-Cell Biotransformation System for the Direct Hydroxylation of Propane Catalyzed by a Robust Intracellular Wild-Type Cytochrome P450BM3 Activated by Decoy Molecules.

We report a decoy molecule-based whole-cell biotransformation system that achieves the direct hydroxylation of propane to 2-propanol using wild-type cytochrome P450BM3 expressed in Escherichia coli. With the most effective decoy molecule N-(2-cyclopentylethyl)-prolyl-phenylalanine (2CPE-Pro-Phe), 2-propanol was produced at a final concentration of 29 mM with a high selectivity of 99%. The catalytic activity achieved using this approach was higher than that achieved using previously reported P450BM3 mutants, demonstrating the potential of decoy molecule-assisted P450BM3 for the scalable conversion of gaseous alkanes under mild conditions. The decoy molecule system enables the use of stable wild-type P450BM3, maintaining long-term activity without deactivationan advantage over engineered mutants, which often suffer from reduced stability.