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Updated: Jun 28, 2025
Enzymatic Cascade Reactions for the Synthesis of Chiral Amino Alcohols from L-lysine
Published on: February 16, 2018
Coupling metal and whole-cell catalysis to synthesize chiral alcohols
Hang Yin1,2, Peng-Qian Luan2, Yu-Fei Cao3
1Lab of Applied Biocatalysis, School of Food Science and Engineering, South China University of Technology, No. 381 Wushan Road, Guangzhou, 510640, China.
Background:
The combination of metal-catalyzed reactions and enzyme catalysis has been an essential tool for synthesizing chiral pharmaceutical intermediates in the field of drug synthesis. Metal catalysis commonly enables the highly efficient synthesis of molecular scaffolds under harsh organic conditions, whereas enzymes usually catalyze reactions in mild aqueous medium to obtain high selectivity. Since the incompatibility between metal and enzyme catalysis, there are limitations on the compatibility of reaction conditions that must be overcome.
Findings:
We report a chemoenzymatic cascade reaction involved Palladium (Pd) catalyzed Suzuki-Miyaura coupling and whole-cell catalyzed C = O asymmetric reduction for enantioselective synthesis of value-added chiral alcohol. The cell membrane serves as a natural barrier can protect intracellular enzymes from organic solvents.
Conclusions:
With dual advantages of cascade catalysis and biocompatibility, our work provides a rational strategy to harvest chiral alcohols in high yield and excellent enantioselectivity, as a channel to establish chemoenzymatic catalysis.
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