An Exploratory Study of the Enzymatic Hydroxycinnamoylation of Sucrose and Its Derivatives

Phenylpropanoid sucrose esters are a large and important group of natural substances with significant therapeutic potential. This work describes a pilot study of the enzymatic hydroxycinnamoylation of sucrose and its derivatives which was carried out with the aim of obtaining precursors of natural phenylpropanoid sucrose esters, e.g., vanicoside B. In addition to sucrose, some chemically prepared sucrose acetonides and substituted 3'-O-cinnamates were subjected to enzymatic transesterification with vinyl esters of coumaric, ferulic and 3,4,5-trimethoxycinnamic acid. Commercial enzyme preparations of Lipozyme TL IM lipase and Pentopan 500 BG exhibiting feruloyl esterase activity were tested as biocatalysts in these reactions. The substrate specificity of the used biocatalysts for the donor and acceptor as well as the regioselectivity of the reactions were evaluated and discussed. Surprisingly, Lipozyme TL IM catalyzed the cinnamoylation of sucrose derivatives more to the 1'-OH and 4'-OH positions than to the 6'-OH when the 3'-OH was free and the 6-OH was blocked by isopropylidene. In this case, Pentopan reacted comparably to 1'-OH and 6'-OH positions. If sucrose 3'-O-coumarate was used as an acceptor, in the case of feruloylation with Lipozyme in CH₃CN, 6-O-ferulate was the main product (63%). Pentopan feruloylated sucrose 3'-O-coumarate comparably well at the 6-OH and 6'-OH positions (77%). When a proton-donor solvent was used, migration of the 3'-O-cinnamoyl group from fructose to the 2-OH position of glucose was observed. The enzyme hydroxycinnamoylations studied can shorten the targeted syntheses of various phenylpropanoid sucrose esters.