Biocatalysts reductive processes approaches

In addition to the above described procedures implying either direct oxidation of an olefinic double bond or stereoselective reduction of a ketone precursor, which, as discussed above, do not really provide very efficient ways for the large scale synthesis of enantiopure epoxides, some indirect strategies have also been explored. These are essentially based on the resolution of epoxide-ring bearing substrates as exemplified below. As will be seen, these approaches imply the use of cofactor-independent enzymes, which are in practice much easier to work with, and lead to very interesting results. As a matter fact, some of these processes are already used on an industrial scale, and it can be predicted that future industrial applications will continue to be essentially based on the use of these very promising easy-to-use biocatalysts. 

During the last ten years enzyme technology has moved mainly towards the development of new immobilization techniques and the improvement of those already existing. In turn, the attention of applied research has been focused on the engineering of systems based on immobilized biocatalysts. Enzymes involved in this development were enzymes catalyzing simple reactions that normally require no cofactors. A number of drawbacks affected the use of immobilized enzymatic preparations. An often dramatic reduction of initial enzyme activity due to the binding process, and the existence of diffusional resistances limits this approach with low activity enzymes, with macromolecular substrates and in general with enzymes whose cata-... 

However, when biocatalysts showing a sufficient cofactor specificity are not naturally available, possible undesired interferences between the cofactor regeneration systems can be circumvented by different approaches still maintaining the one-pot fashion of the multienzymatic process. For example, in the biocatalyzed synthesis of 12-ketoursodeoxycholic acid, the performances of the investigated cascade system, in which five enzymes were involved in concurrent oxidation and reduction reactions at different sites of the starting substrate cholic acid, were significantly improved by simple compartmentalization of the oxidative and reductive enzymes in two membrane reactors (Scheme 11.4b) [11]. 

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