Enzymes transition metal combination

An alternative enzyme/transition metal combination employs transfer hydrogenation catalysts that are capable of racemizing secondary alcohols. The racemization procedure temporarily converts the alcohol into an achiral ketone, which is reduced back to the racemic alcohol. Coupling this racemization procedure to an enzyme-catalyzed acylation reaction affords a dynamic resolution process (Fig. 9-12). Several enzyme/transition metal combinations have been shown to be effective for these reactions, although ruthenium complexes 1-3 appear to be especially effective for the in situ racemization of the alcohol. The product esters are not prone to racemization under the reaction conditions. Early results employing transfer hydrogenation catalysts to effect the racemization of alcohols required the use of added ketone 21, 22. However, it was subsequently shown that added ketone was not required when appropriate transition metal complexes were used as catalysts. Furthermore, the use of 4-chlorophenyl acetate as the acyl donor afforded improved results. 

In addition to the use of enzyme and transition metal combinations for the dynamic resolution of alcohols, there has been a brief report of the use of amines as substrates. In 1996, Reetz and Schimossek reported the combination of palladium on carbon with an immobilized lipase (from Candida antarctica) in the dynamic... 

The research groups of Williams [19] and Backvall [20] were the first to report the combination of enzymes and transition metals for DKR of sec-alcohols. 

Transition metal catalysts and biocatalysts can be combined in tandem in very effective ways as shown by the following example (Scheme 2.21). An immobilized rhodium complex-catalyzed hydrogenahon of 46 was followed by enzymatic hydrolysis of the amide and ester groups of 47 to afford alanine (S)-9 in high conversion and enanhomeric excess. Removal of the hydrogenation catalyst by filtration prior to addition of enzyme led to improved yields when porcine kidney acylase 1 was used, although the acylase from Aspergillus melleus was unaffected by residual catalyst [23]. 

In 1997, Sturmer highlighted the importance of the combination of enzymes and transition metals in one pot [36]. Since then, this concept has aroused much interest within the scientific community. In all the DKRs presented in this section, the enzyme catalyzes a transesterification process. Thus, enzyme- and metal-catalyzed DKRs are categorized according to the nature of the substrates as being allylic substrates, secondary alcohols, or primary amines. In the first case,... 

Kim and Park subsequently reported that ruthenium pre-catalyst 2 racemizes alcohols within 30 min at room temperature [53]. However, when combined with an enzyme (lipase) in DKR at room temperature, very long reaction times (1.3 to 7 days) were required, in spite of the fact that the enzymatic KR takes only a few hours (Scheme 5.24). Despite these compatibility problems, their results constituted an important improvement, since chemoenzymatic DKR could now be performed at ambient temperature to give high yields, which enables non-thermostable enzymes to be used. More recently, we communicated a highly efficient metal- and enzyme-catalyzed DKR of alcohols at room temperature (Scheme 5.24) [40, 54]. This is the fastest DKR of alcohols hitherto reported by the combination of transition metal and enzyme catalysts. Racemization was effected by a new class of very... 

The only difference is that in conventional kinetic resolution the enantiomer (5)-substrate is left behind as unreacted starting material while in case of dynamic kinetic resolution the substrate is continuously isomerised during the resolution process, thus (R) and ( )-substrates are in equilibrium, which allows for the possibility of converting all starting materials of (A)-substrate into (A)-product. Several conditions should be applied and are reviewed in literature.21 For instance, Backvall et al20 used a combination of enzyme and transition metal complex (Ru-catalyst) to perform the DKR of a set of secondary alcohols. Depending on the substrate, the chemical yield was ranging from 60 to 88 % with more... 

An example where a transition metal catalyst is used in combination with an enzyme has been described (Scheme 19.26).207 The racemic alcohol 50 was converted to the (A1)-acetate 51, using a ruthenium catalyst along with Novozym 435 (immobilized Lipase B from Candida antarctica), 3 equivalents of p-chlorophenylacetate in t-BuOH, and 1 equivalent of 1-indanone. The reaction yield was 81% with an optical purity of >99.5% ee. 

The method of combined enzyme- and transition metal-catalyzed reactions widely applied to the DKR of secondary alcohols has also been applied to the DKR of a-hydroxy acid esters rac-1. The principle is based on the enantioselective acylation catalyzed by Pseudomonas species lipase (PS-C from Amano Ltd) using p-Cl-phenyl acetate as an acyl donor in cyclohexane combined with in situ racemization of the non-acylated enantiomer catalyzed by ruthenium compounds [7]. Under these conditions, various a-hydroxy esters of type 1 were deracemized in moderate to good yields and high enantioselectivity (Scheme 13.2). 

Starting from achiral materials, two stereoisomeric phosphonylated dihydroxy pyrrolidines (275) and (276), containing four stereogenic centers, have been synthesized enantioselectively, employing a combination of enzymatic and transition-metal-mediated methods. Both compounds contain features of the transition state of the enzyme-catalysed fucosyl transfer reaction and represent building blocks of potential inhibitors against this class of enzymes. The synthesis of new sugar-derived phosphonic acids e.g. (277) from protected... 

Enzymes are capable of the kind of selectivity and rate enhancements discussed above because their active sites exhibit a number of distinctive features compared to the active sites employed by soluble transition metal complexes and solid state catalysts multi-point contact with the substrate, which is very hard to engineer in a synthetic catalyst the structural flexibility to undergo collective and rapid changes in structure to facilitate catalysis of a reaction and a unique ability to combine apparently incompatible features in catalysis, such as simultaneous acid and base catalysis and hydrophobic/hydrophilic interactions [62,63]. These points are discussed in more detail in the following sections. 

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