Syntheses of optically active amino acids by the combination of chemical methods and microbial techniques

The newly developed processes combining the advantages of chemical methods and microbial techniques brought about optically active amino acids (D- or L-) from racemic compounds. In all cases, the other isomer of substrates (L- or D-) that cannot be catalyzed by hydrolyzing enzymes were easily racemized under reaction conditions. Then, optically active amino acids were produced quantitatively from the racemic compounds.