Glycine-124 and leucine-307 of phenylalanine dehydrogenase from Bacillus sphaericus were altered by site-specific mutagenesis to the corresponding residues in leucine dehydrogenase: alanine and valine, respectively. These two residues have previously been implicated from molecular modelling as important in determining the substrate discrimination of the two enzymes. Single and double mutants displayed lower activities towards l-phenylalanine and enhanced activity towards almost all aliphatic amino acid substrates tested compared to the wild-type, thus confirming the predictions made from molecular modelling.
