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Updated: Dec 8, 2025

Separation of Aldehydes and Reactive Ketones from Mixtures Using a Bisulfite Extraction Protocol
Published on: April 2, 2018
Facile Stereoselective Reduction of Prochiral Ketones by using an F420 -dependent Alcohol Dehydrogenase
Caterina Martin1, Gwen Tjallinks1, Milos Trajkovic1
1Molecular Enzymology Group, University of Groningen, Nijenborgh 4, Groningen, The Netherlands.
Abstract:
Effective procedures for the synthesis of optically pure alcohols are highly valuable. A commonly employed method involves the biocatalytic reduction of prochiral ketones. This is typically achieved by using nicotinamide cofactor-dependent reductases. In this work, we demonstrate that a rather unexplored class of enzymes can also be used for this. We used an F420 -dependent alcohol dehydrogenase (ADF) from Methanoculleus thermophilicus that was found to reduce various ketones to enantiopure alcohols. The respective (S) alcohols were obtained in excellent enantiopurity (>99 % ee). Furthermore, we discovered that the deazaflavoenzyme can be used as a self-sufficient system by merely using a sacrificial cosubstrate (isopropanol) and a catalytic amount of cofactor F420 or the unnatural cofactor FOP to achieve full conversion. This study reveals that deazaflavoenzymes complement the biocatalytic toolbox for enantioselective ketone reductions.
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