Enantioselectivity hydrolases

When the desired reaction is not essential, creative thinking must be employed. Adding a selectable moiety may create derivatives of a natural substrate that allow for selection. Hwang et al. [41] used this approach to derive a screen for enantioselective hydrolases. By linking the antibiotic chloramphenicol to either the R- or, S -enantiomer of 2-phenylbutyric acid, they showed that Exiguobacterium acetylicum could hydrolyse the l -form (as the released chloramphenicol inhibited growth) but not the, S -form. However, one must be aware that activity on a derivative may not always correspond to the activity on the actual desired substrate. 

Enantiomeric purity. In order to assess the efficiency of an enantioselective hydrolase-catalyzed reaction, it is imperative that one can accurately measure at least the conversion and the enantiomeric excesses of either the substrate or the product (see equations Equation 1, Equation 2, and Equation 3). Although optical rotation is sometimes used to assess enantiomeric excess, it is not recommended. Much better alternatives are various chromatographic methods. For volatile compounds, capillary gas chromatography on a chiral liquid phase is probably the most convenient method. Numerous commercial suppliers offer a large variety of columns with different chiral liquid phases. Hence it is often easy to find suitable conditions for enantioselective GC-separations that yield ee-values in excess of... 

Details of Enzyme-coupled UV/Visible-based Assay for Enantioselective Hydrolases [16]... 

Baumann, M., Sturmer, R. and Bomscheuer, U.T. (2001) A high-throughput-saeening method for the identification of active and enantioselective hydrolases. Angewandte Chemie-International Edition, 40, 4201 204. 

Ma F, Hanna MA (1999) Biodiesel production a review. Biores Technol 70 1-15 Magnusson A, Hull K, Holmquists M (2001) Creation of an enantioselective hydrolase by engineered substrate-assisted catalysis. J Am Chem Soc 123 4354 355 Manjon A, Iborra JL, Arocas A (1991) Short-chain flavour ester synthesis by immobilized lipase in organic media. Biotechnol Lett 13 339-345 Margolin A (1996) Novel crystalline catalysts. TIBTECH 14 223-230... 

In all the reported examples, the enzyme selectivity was affected by the solvent used, but the stereochemical preference remained the same. However, in some specific cases it was found that it was also possible to invert the hydrolases enantioselectivity. The first report was again from iQibanov s group, which described the transesterification of the model compound (13) with n-propanol. As shown in Table 1.6, the enantiopreference of an Aspergillus oryzae protease shifted from the (l)- to the (D)-enantiomer by moving from acetonitrile to CCI4 [30]. Similar observations on the inversion of enantioselectivity by switching from one solvent to another were later reported by other authors [31]. 

Several reports regarding the directed evolution of enantioselective epoxide hydrolases (EHs) have appeared [23,57-59]. These enzymes constitute important catalysts in synthetic organic chemistry [4,60]. The first two reported studies concern the Aspergillus niger epoxide hydrolase (ANEH) [57,58]. Initial attempts were made to enhance the enantioselectivity of the AN E H -catalyzed hydrolytic kinetic resolution of glycidyl phenyl ether (rac-19). The WT leads to an Evalue of only 4.6 in favor of (S)-20 (see Scheme 2.4) [58]. 

Enantioselective alcoholysis of racemic, prochiral, or meso cyclic anhydrides can be catalyzed by hydrolases, yielding the corresponding monoesters (Eigure 6.25). In most cases, the enantioselectivity was moderate ]75-77]. Organometallic catalysts or organocatalysts such as cinchona alkaloids are often more efficient than enzymes for the stereoselective ring opening of cyclic anhydrides. 

In some cases enzymes can increase the rate of reaction by up to lO times. Carnell and Roberts (1997) have briefly discussed the scope of biotransformations that are used to make pharmaceuticals like penicillins, cephalosporines, erythromycin, lovastatin, cyclosporin, etc., and for food additives like citric acid, L-glutamate, and L-lysine. A very successful transformation by Zeneca has been that of benzene reduction, with Pseudomonase Putida, to dihydrocatechol and catechol the dihydro derivative is used to produce (+/-) pinitol. Fluorobenzene has been converted to fluorodihydrocatechol, an intermediate for pharmaceuticals. The highly stereo selective Bayer-Villeger reaction has been carried out with genetically engineered S-cerevisvae. Hydrolases have allowed enantioselective, and in some cases regioselective, hydrolysis of racemic esters. 

One of the most actively investigated aspects of the biohydrolysis of carboxylic acid esters is enantioselectivity (for a definition of the various stereochemical terms used here, see [7], particularly its Sect. 1.5) for two reasons, one practical (preparation of pure enantiomers for various applications) and one fundamental (investigations on the structure and function of hydrolases). The synthetic and preparative aspects of enantioselective biocatalysis by hydrolases have been extensively investigated for biotechnology applications but are of only secondary interest in our context (e.g., [16-18], see Sect. 7.3.5). In contrast, the fundamental aspects of enantioselectivity in particular and of structure-metabolism relationships in general are central to our approach and are illustrated here with a number of selected examples. 

One of the most intriguing and best explored specificities of hydrolases is their product enantiospecificity, a property that is not restricted to the biotransformation of xenobiotics since it is displayed by lipases acting on their physiological substrates. Indeed, prochiral triglycerides have been found to be hydrolyzed with marked product enantioselectivity by various lipases [51] [52], Such specificity can hardly be fortuitous and must have a physiological significance, which remains to be understood. 

Diesters ofalicyclic dicarboxylic acids are also valuable as tools to study the specificity of hydrolases. Such substrates can be achiral (e.g., cis-1,2-dicar bo xy 1 ate s) or chiral (e.g., fram-l,2-dicarboxy laics), allowing product-enantioselective hydrolysis or substrate-enantioselective hydrolysis, respectively, to take place. Considering first cis-7,2- and cis-1,3-diesters (e.g., 7.36,... 

R. Chenevert, R. Pouliot, P. Bureau, Enantioselective Hydrolysis of -Chloramphenicol Palmitate by Hydrolases , Bioorg. Med. Chem. Lett. 1994, 4, 2941-2944. 

Turning to enzymatic hydration, we see from the data in Table 10.1 that phenanthrene 9,10-oxide Fig. 10.10, 10.29) is an excellent substrate for epoxide hydrolase. Comparison of enzymatic hydration of the three isomeric phenanthrene oxides shows that the Vmax with the 9,10-oxide is greater than with the 1,2- or the 3,4-oxide the affinity was higher as well, as assessed by the tenfold lower Km value [90]. Furthermore, phenanthrene 9,10-oxide has a plane of symmetry and is, thus, an achiral molecule, but hydration gives rise to a chiral metabolite with high product enantioselectivity. Indeed, nucleophilic attack by epoxide hydrolase occurs at C(9) with inversion of configuration i.e., from below the oxirane ring as shown in Fig. 10.10) to yield the C-H9.S, 10.S )-9,10-dihydro-9,10-diol (10.30) [91],... 

The base-catalyzed hydration of 2-phenyloxirane involves nucleophilic attack preferentially at C(3) (0-C(3) cleavage), but with only partial regio-selectivity. Acid-catalyzed hydration is mainly by 0-C(2) cleavage. The hydration of 2-phenyloxirane catalyzed by epoxide hydrolase is characterized by its very high regioselectivity for the less-hindered, unsubstituted C(3) [175] [176], involving retention of configuration at C(2). In other words, (R)-and (5)-2-phenyloxirane are metabolized to (/ )- and (S)-l-phenylethane-l,2-diol (10.118), respectively. Substrate enantioselectivity was also character-... 

R. N. Armstrong, B. Kedzierski, W. Levin, D. M. Jerina, Enantioselectivity of Microsomal Epoxide Hydrolase toward Arene Oxide Substrates , J. Biol. Chem. 1981, 256, 4726 - 4733. 

G. Bellucci, C. Chiappe, F. Marioni, M. Benetti, Regio- and Enantioselectivity of the Cytosolic Epoxide Hydrolase-Catalysed Hydrolysis of Racemic Monosubstituted Alkyloxiranes ,./. Chem. Soc., Perkin Trans. 1 1991, 361 - 363 G. Bellucci, C. Chiappe, L. Conti, F. Marioni, G. Pierini, Substrate Enantioselection in the Microsomal Epoxide Hydrolase Catalyzed Hydrolysis of Monosubstituted Oxiranes. Effects of Branching of Alkyl Chains ,./. Org. Chem. 1989, 54, 5978 - 5983. 

G. Bellucci, C. Chiappe, F. Marioni, Enantioselectivity of the Enzymatic Hydrolysis of Cyclohexene Oxide and ( )-l-Methylcyclohexene Oxide A Comparison between Microsomal and Cytosolic Epoxide Hydrolases , J. Chem. Soc., Perkin Trans. 1 1989, 2369 -2373. 

Benzyloxy-2-methylpropane-l,2-diol, a desymmetrized form of 2-methylpropane-1,2,3-triol with its terminal hydroxy being protected as a benzyl ether, was prepared using the B. subtilis epoxide hydrolase-catalyzed enantioselective hydrolysis of the racemic benzyloxymethyl-l-methyloxirane readily available from methallyl chloride and benzyl alcohol. The preparation of the racemic epoxide, a key intermediate, was described in Procedures 1 and 2 (Sections 5.6.1 and 5.6.2), its overall yield being 78 %. The combined yield of enantiomerically pure (7 )-3-benzyloxy-2-methylpropane-l,2-diol was 74 % from ( )-benzyloxymethyl-l-methyloxirane, as described in Procedures 3-5 (Sections 5.6.3 and 5.6.5), with the overall procedures leading to the biocatalytic dihydroxylation of benzyl methallyl ether . 

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