LAUSR

Phenylalanine ammonia-lyase (PAL) catalyzes the reversible deamination of phenylalanine to cinnamic acid and ammonia. Algae have been considered as biofactories for PAL production, however, biochemical characterization of PAL and its potency for myristicin biotransformation into MMDA (3-methoxy-4, 5-methylenedioxyamphetamine) has not been studied yet. Thus, PAL from Anabaena flos-aquae and Spirulina platensis has been purified, comparatively characterized and its affinity to transform myristicin was assessed. The specific activity of purified PAL from S. platensis (73.9 μmol/mg/min) and A. flos-aquae (30.5 μmol/mg/min) was increased by about 2.9 and 2.4 folds by gel-filtration comparing to their corresponding crude enzymes. Under denaturing-PAGE, a single proteineous band of molecular mass 64 kDa was appeared for A. flos-aquae and S. platensis PAL. The biochemical properties of the purified PAL from both algal isolates were determined comparatively. The optimum temperature of S. platensis and A. flos-aquae PAL for forward or reverse activity was reported at 30 °C, as well as the optimum pH for PAL enzyme isolated from A. flos-aquae was 8.9 for forward and reverse activities, while S. platensis PAL had maximum activities at pH of 8.9 and 8 for forward and reverse reactions, respectively. Luckily, the purified PALs have the affinity to hydroaminate the myristicin to MMDA successfully in a one step. Furthermore, a successful synthesis of MMDA from myristicin in two-steps was established. Gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) analysis was developed to track the product formation.