The analytical reactions (100 µL) were performed at 37 °C and at time intervals (0, 2, 5, 10, 20, 30, 60, 120 min). During the reaction, the pH was periodically adjusted to the value 4.6–5.0 by stepwise addition of 1 N HCl (total: 10 µL). At the indicated times, aliquots (5 μL) were transferred in 50 µL of 10 mM NaOH and then 2 µL analysed for GABA content with the GABase assay (see previous section). The experiment was performed in duplicate.
The preparative reaction was performed at 37 °C, adjusting the pH periodically to the value of 4.6–5.4 by adding 1 N HCl (total: 80 μL). At time intervals (0, 2, 5, 10, 20, 40, 60, 90, 120, 150, 180, 240, 300 min), aliquots (15 μL) were transferred in 10 µL of 250 mM NaOH, the precipitated protein was separated by centrifugation, D2O (600 μL) was added to supernatant and 31P NMR spectra were measured on a Bruker 500 UltraShieldTM. The experiment was performed in triplicate.