Enzymes, enantioselective, directed

Examples of Enhancing the Enantioselectivity of Enzymes by Directed Evolution... 

An intriguing influence of a cosolvent immiscible with water on the enantioselec-tivity of the enzyme-catalyzed hydrolysis was observed. It was proven that enzyme enantioselectivity is directly correlated with the cosolvent hydrophobicity. In the best example, for ethyl ether as cosolvent, the reaction proceeded with E = 55, and the target compound was obtained in 33% yield with 92.7% ee. This finding may be of great practical importance, particularly in industrial processes [24], since it will enable better optimization of enzyme-catalyzed processes. It is clear that, in future, immobilized enzymes, as heterogeneous catalysts, wiU be widely used in most industrial transformations, especially in the preparation of pharmaceuticals [25]. 

The chapter by Reetz includes many examples and explanations of methods illustrating how directed evolution has been applied to prepare new enzyme catalysts. Directed evolution of enantioselective enzymes has emerged as a fundamentally new approach to asymmetric catalysis. It involves the combination... 

Reetz MT (2004a) Controlling the enantioselectivity of enzymes by directed evolution Practical and theoretical ramifications. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 101 5716-5722... 

Recent results show that directed evolution can also invert enzyme enantioselectivity [65l The hydantoinase derived from Arthrobacter sp. shows a substrate-dependent inversion of enantioselectivity which limits its use for the production of certain l-amino acids such as L-methionine (for applications of hydantoinases in organic syntheses see Chapter 12). By accumulation of mutations through sequential rounds of error-prone PCR and saturation mutagenesis, the enantioselectivity of the hydantoinase was inverted from ee = 40 % for the D-enantiomer to ee = 20 % for the l-isorner at 30% conversion. Only one amino acid substitution was required for the... 

In 2003, Barbas and coworkers described a one-pot synthesis of functionalized P-aminoalcohols from aldehydes, acetone, and dibenzyl azodicarboxylate [2], This enzyme-like direct asymmetric assembly process was catalyzed with 20 mol% of L-proline (l-Pto) and provided the optically active products 1. This was the first example of an assembly reaction that used directly both an aldehyde and a ketone as donors in a single vessel. The success of the assembly reaction can be attributed to the higher reactivity of aldehydes over ketones in the L-Pro-catalyzed a-amination. The reaction of propionaldehyde, acetone, and dibenzyl azodicarboxylate in acetonitrile produced the expected aminoalcohol 1 in 85% yield (Scheme 12.1). The two diastereomers were obtained with an anti/syn ratio of 54 46 and with an enantioselectivity of >99% for the anti product. The authors explored the scope of the assembly reaction using various aldehydic donors, and this transformation was applied to the expedient synthesis of a potent renin inhibitor. 

Directed Evolution as a Means to Engineer Enantioselective Enzymes... 

Figure 2.1 Strategy for directed evolution of an enantioselective enzyme [6,8].

Figure 2.2 The experimental stages of directed evolution of enantioselective enzymes [6,8].

Nitrilases catalyze the synthetically important hydrolysis of nitriles with formation of the corresponding carboxylic acids [4]. Scientists at Diversa expanded the collection of nitrilases by metagenome panning [56]. Nevertheless, in numerous cases the usual limitations of enzyme catalysis become visible, including poor or only moderate enantioselectivity, limited activity (substrate acceptance), and/or product inhibition. Diversa also reported the first example of the directed evolution of an enantioselective nitrilase [20]. An additional limitation had to be overcome, which is sometimes ignored, when enzymes are used as catalysts in synthetic organic chemistry product inhibition and/or decreased enantioselectivity at high substrate concentrations [20]. 

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]. 

In nature, aminotransferases participate in a number of metabolic pathways [4[. They catalyze the transfer of an amino group originating from an amino acid donor to a 2-ketoacid acceptor by a simple mechanism. First, an amino group from the donor is transferred to the cofactor pyridoxal phosphate with formation of a 2-keto add and an enzyme-bound pyridoxamine phosphate intermediate. Second, this intermediate transfers the amino group to the 2-keto add acceptor. The readion is reversible, shows ping-pong kinetics, and has been used industrially in the production ofamino acids [69]. It can be driven in one direction by the appropriate choice of conditions (e.g. substrate concentration). Some of the aminotransferases accept simple amines instead of amino acids as amine donors, and highly enantioselective cases have been reported [70]. 

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