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Published on: November 11, 2008
Biotransamination of Furan-Based Aldehydes with Isopropylamine: Enzyme Screening and pH Influence
Antía Pintor1,2, Nicoletta Cascelli1,3, Alexey Volkov2
1Organic and Inorganic Chemistry Department, University of Oviedo, Avenida Julián Clavería 8, 33006, Oviedo, Spain.
Abstract:
Furan-based amines are highly valuable compounds which can be directly obtained via reductive amination from easily accessible furfural, 5-(hydroxymethyl)furfural (HMF) and 2,5-diformylfuran (DFF). Herein the biocatalytic amination of these carbonyl derivatives is disclosed using amine transaminases (ATAs) and isopropylamine (IPA) as amine donors. Among the different biocatalysts tested, the ones from Chromobacterium violaceum (Cv-TA), Arthrobacter citreus (ArS-TA), and variants from Arthrobacter sp. (ArRmut11-TA) and Vibrio fluvialis (Vf-mut-TA), afforded high levels of product formation (>80 %) at 100-200 mM aldehyde concentration. The transformations were studied in terms of enzyme and IPA loading. The pH influence was found as a key factor and attributed to the imine/aldehyde equilibrium that can arise from the high reactivity of the carbonyl substrates with a nucleophilic amine such as IPA.
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