Journal of the American Chemical Society, Vol.139, No.4, 1408-1411, 2017
Real-Time Screening of Biocatalysts in Live Bacterial Colonies
Screening of bacterial colonies to identify new biocatalytic activities is a widely adopted tool in biotechnology, but is constrained by the requirements for colorimetric or tag-based detection, methods. Herein we report a label-free screening platform for biotransformations in live colonies using desorption electrospray ionization coupled with ion mobility mass spectrometry imaging (DiBT-IMMS). The screening method is demonstrated for both ammonia lyases and P450 monooxygenases expressed within live bacterial colonies and is shown to enable multiplexing of enzyme variants and substrate libraries simultaneously.