Related Experiment Video
Updated: Dec 18, 2025

A Customizable Approach for the Enzymatic Production and Purification of Diterpenoid Natural Products
Published on: October 4, 2019
An effective method to produce 7-epitaxol from taxol in HCO3.
Yanjie Liu1, Xiaoyu Ma1, Mengkai Zhou1
1Beijing Key Laboratory of Genetic Engineering Drug and Biotechnology, Institute of Biochemistry and Biotechnology, College of Life Science, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, PR China.
Abstract:
It is known that 7-epitaxol has much stronger cytotoxicity than taxol does. However, the content of 7-epitaxol in yew is much less than taxol, which makes it more costly to obtain. We describe here a method to effectively convert taxol to 7-epitaxol. The key condition for reaction needs NaHCO3 in solvent acetonitrile (ACN). The conversion rate can be over 82%.

