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Updated: Dec 7, 2025

Enzymatic Cascade Reactions for the Synthesis of Chiral Amino Alcohols from L-lysine
Published on: February 16, 2018
Synthesis of α-hydroxy ketones and vicinal diols with the Bacillus licheniformis DSM 13T butane-2,3-diol
Lukas Muschallik1, Carina Ronja Kipp1, Inga Recker1
1Institute of Nano- and Biotechnologies, Aachen University of Applied Sciences, 52428, Jülich, Germany.
Abstract:
The enantioselective synthesis of α-hydroxy ketones and vicinal diols is an intriguing field because of the broad applicability of these molecules. Although, butandiol dehydrogenases are known to play a key role in the production of 2,3-butandiol, their potential as biocatalysts is still not well studied. Here, we investigate the biocatalytic properties of the meso-butanediol dehydrogenase from Bacillus licheniformis DSM 13T (BlBDH). The encoding gene was cloned with an N-terminal StrepII-tag and recombinantly overexpressed in E. coli. BlBDH is highly active towards several non-physiological diketones and α-hydroxyketones with varying aliphatic chain lengths or even containing phenyl moieties. By adjusting the reaction parameters in biotransformations the formation of either the α-hydroxyketone intermediate or the diol can be controlled.
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