Biocatalysis nitrilases

DiCosimo, R. (2007) Nitrilases and nitrile hydratases, in Biocatalysis in the Pharmaceutical and Biotechnology Industries (ed. R.N. Patel), CRC Press LLC, Boca Raton, FL, Chapter 1. 

Bergeron S, Chaplin D, Edwards JH, Ellis BS, Hill CL, Holt-Tiffin K, Knight JR, Mahoney T, Osborne AP, Ruecroft G (2006) Nitrilase-catalyzed desym-metrization of 3-hydroxyglutaronitrile preparation of a statin side-chain intermediate. Org Proc Res Dev 10 661-665 Burns M, Weaver J, Wong J (2005) Stereoselective enzymic bioconversion of aliphatic dinitriles into cyano carboxylic acids. WO 2005100580 DeSantis G, Zhu Z, Greenberg W, Wong K, Chaplin J, Hanson SR, Farwell B, Nicholson LW, Rand CL, Weiner DP, Robertson D, Burk MJ (2002) An enzyme library approach to biocatalysis development of nitrilases for enantioselective production of carboxylic acid derivatives. J Am Chem Soc 124 9024-9025... 

In summary, the formation of optically active compounds through hydrolysis reactions is dominated by biocatalysis mainly due to the availability and ease of use of a wide variety of esterases, lipases and (to a lesser extent) acylases. Epoxide ring-opening (and related reactions) is likely to be dominated by salen-metal catalysts while enzyme-catalysed nitrile hydrolysis seems destined to remain under-exploited until nitrilases or nitrile hydratases become commercially available. 

J. 2002. An enzyme library approach to biocatalysis development of nitrilases for enantioselective production of carboxylic acid derivatives./. Am. Chem. Soc.,124(31), 9024-9025. 

S., Zhou, Z.-M., and Xu, Z.-H. (2012) Nitrilases in nitrile biocatalysis recent progress and forthcoming research. Microb. Cell Fact., 11, 142-159. 

Vejvoda, V., Kaplan, O., Kubac, D., Kfen, V., and Martmkova, L. (2006). Immobilization of fungal nitrilase and bacterial amidase— two enzymes working in accord. Biocatalysis and Biotransformation, 24,414-418. 

Bayer S, Birkemeyer C, Ballschmiter M. A nitrilase from a metagenomic library acts regioselectively on aliphatic dinitrUes [J]. Appl Microbiol Biotechnol 2011,89 (1) 91-98. Bomscheuer UT, Huisman GW, Kazlauskas RJ, Lutz S, Moore JC, Robins K. Engineering the third wave of biocatalysis [J]. Nature 2012, 485 (7397) 185-194. 

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