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Updated: Jul 15, 2025

Enzymatic Cascade Reactions for the Synthesis of Chiral Amino Alcohols from L-lysine
Published on: February 16, 2018
Biocatalysis in Drug Design: Engineered Reductive Aminases (RedAms) Are Used to Access Chiral Building Blocks with
Arnau Rué Casamajo1, Yuqi Yu1, Christian Schnepel2
1Department of Chemistry, University of Manchester, Manchester Institute of Biotechnology, 131 Princess Street, Manchester M1 7DN, United Kingdom.
Abstract:
Novel building blocks are in constant demand during the search for innovative bioactive small molecule therapeutics by enabling the construction of structure-activity-property-toxicology relationships. Complex chiral molecules containing multiple stereocenters are an important component in compound library expansion but can be difficult to access by traditional organic synthesis. Herein, we report a biocatalytic process to access a specific diastereomer of a chiral amine building block used in drug discovery. A reductive aminase (RedAm) was engineered following a structure-guided mutagenesis strategy to produce the desired isomer. The engineered RedAm (IR-09 W204R) was able to generate the (S,S,S)-isomer 3 in 45% conversion and 95% ee from the racemic ketone 2. Subsequent palladium-catalyzed deallylation of 3 yielded the target primary amine 4 in a 73% yield. This engineered biocatalyst was used at preparative scale and represents a potential starting point for further engineering and process development.
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