Fosfomycin microbial epoxidation

Once the problems of product toxicity were surmounted by sophisticated process engineering, microbial epoxidation of alkenes became also feasible on an industrial scale [1153, 1154]. The latter was achieved by using organic-aqueous two-phase systems or by evaporation for volatile epoxides. For instance, the epoxy-phosphonic acid derivative fosfomycin [1155], whose enantiospecific synthesis by classical methods would have been extremely difficult, was obtained by a microbial epoxidation of the corresponding olefinic substrate using Penicillium spinulosum. 

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