Reaction preparation, enzymatic reduction

Protease or lipase enzymes were useful for the regioselective aminoacylation of lobucavir. Lipase was also used for resolution of a synthon for the paclitaxel side chain. The paclitaxel side-chain ester was also prepared by reduction of a keto ester precursor. Enzymatic reduction of ketones to chiral alcohols is another reaction that has been widely applicable. C14-deacylase, ClO-deacety-lase, and C7-xylosidase were identified from microorganisms isolated from soil samples and were useful for converting complex mixtures of taxanes found in yew extracts primarily to 10-deacetyl baccatin III, a precursor for the semisynthesis of paclitaxel and analogs. 

The first task was to prepare the chiral sulfoxide. The synthesis began with the conversion of methyl propionate (144) to keto-sulfide 145. Enzymatic reduction of the ketone using Baker s Yeast gave 146 with decent enantiose-lectivity. A directed oxidation of the sulfide provided an unequal mixture of sulfoxides 147 and 148 (and presumably minor amounts of material derived from the 4-5% of ent- 46 present in the starting material) from which 148 could be isolated in 50% yield. Dehydration of the alcohol provided 149 (along with some of the Z isomer). Notice that Mori decided to place the alcohol beta to the sulfoxide in the precursor of 149. There might be a number of reasons for this, but one is that it facilitated the elimination reaction (dehydration) because of the electron-withdrawing properties of the sulfoxide. 

The reaction was carried out in a 22 L reactor with EDTA (3.35 g), mercaptoethanol (1.41g), ammonium formate (908 g), and sterile water (18.0 L), which was degassed prior to addition of keto acid sait 58 (800 g). The solution was filtered through a 0.2 p,m filter and transferred to a clean 22-L reactor. NAD+ (23.88 g) was added and the pH adjusted to 6.3 by adding 1 N HCI. This substrate solution was then fed into a membrane reactor with ultrafiltration membrane for enzymatic reduction. The reactor was previously filled with an aqueous mixture of enzymes (d-LDH, 400 units mL-1 with activity 20 units mg-1 and FDH, 20 units mL-1 with activity 76 units mL-1). An appropriate feed rate was used to maintain a conversion of > 90%. The circulation rate was kept between 15 and 30 times that of the feed rate. The aqueous effluent solution thus obtained was adjusted to pH 3.0 with 2 N HCI and extracted with MTBE (5 L). The organic layer was evaporated to obtain 972 g of acid 56 as an off-white solid in a yield of 88%, >90% purity and >99.9% ee. In this process a total of 14.5 kg of 56 was prepared with a productivity of approximately 560 gram per liter per day with good overall 72% yields [113]. To evaluate the optical purity, 56 was converted to methylester by esterification and the ee of methylester was found to be >99.9%. 

An interesting procedure has been proposed for the synthesis of amylose-b-PS block copolymers through the combination of anionic and enzymatic polymerization [131]. PS end-functionalized with primary amine or dimethylsilyl, -SiMe2H groups were prepared by anionic polymerization techniques, as shown in Scheme 56. The PS chains represented by the curved lines in Scheme 56 were further functionalized with maltoheptaose oligomer either through reductive amination (Scheme 57) or hydrosilyla-tion reactions (Scheme 58). In the first case sodium cyanoborohydride was used to couple the saccharide moiety with the PS primary amine group. 

Preparation and phytochemical reduction of 2,2 -thenoin and 2,2 -thenil have been studied in the authors laboratory (20a). It has been shown that 2,2 -thenoin gives a color reaction similar to that shown by benzoin and other acyloin condensation products in- the presence of alcoholic alkali. The hydroxy ketone may be oxidized by iodine in the presence of sodium methoxide to give the diketone, 2,2 -thenil, in excellent yields. Phytochemical reduction was shown also to be applicable to both compounds. It is significant that thenoin differs from benzoin, since reduction products were not obtained enzymatically from the latter. 

Zhao et al. prepared magnetite (FesO nanoparticles modified with electroactive Prussian Blue [44]. These modified NPs were drop-cast onto glassy-carbon electrodes. They observed the redox processes commonly observed for PB (similar to that seen in Figure 4.8), and also demonstrated that the Prussian White material produced by PB reduction at 0.2 V served as an electrocatalyst for Fi202 reduction. They also prepared LbL films in which PB NPs and glucose oxidase were alternated between PD DA layers [99]. These were demonstrated to act as electrocatalysts for Fi202 reduction. Based on the ability to sense the product of the enzymatic reaction, these structures were shown to act as glucose sensors. 

The enzyme recLBADH is the first catalyst that has been found to allow the highly regio- and enantioselective synthesis of 5-hydroxy-P-keto esters by reduction of the respective diketo esters. This enzymatic reaction is of enormous preparative value. The substrates are readily available by acylation of P-keto ester bisenolates and the reaction only requires a simple batch technique which is easy to scale up. Reduction of the chlorinated compound la has been performed routinely on a 75 g scale in our laboratory (8 L fed batch), yielding (S)-2a in an isolated yield of 84% [10]. 

Semisynthetic enzymatic oxidation of peptide alcohols employs equine liver alcohol dehydrogenase. Amino alcohols with nonpolar side chains and Z-Om[CH2OH] worked as effective substrates while polar amino alcohols such as H-Arg[CH2OH] and H-Lys[CH2OH] failed as substrates. To attain complete oxidation, semicarbazide was present in the reaction mixture to immediately trap the aldehyde, and flavin mononucleotide was used to oxidize the NADH to NAD+, which serves to oxidize the alcohol 41] Configurational stability was confirmed by NMR spectroscopy as in the case of Ac-Phe[CH2OH], which was prepared by sodium borohydride reduction of Ac-Phe-H 4 1... 

Scheme 15)62. After terminating the reaction at a conversion of 38% (relative to total amount of substrate rac-78), the product (S)-43 was separated from the nonreacted substrate by column chromatography on silica gel and isolated on a preparative scale in 71% yield (relative to total amount of converted rac-78) with an enantiomeric purity of 95% ee. Recrystallization led to an improvement of the enantiomeric purity by up to >98% ee. The biotransformation product (S)-43 is the antipode of compound (/ )-43 which was obtained by enantioselective microbial reduction of the acylsilane 42 (see Scheme 8)53. The nonreacted substrate (/ )-78 was isolated in 81% yield (relative to total amount of nonconverted rac-78) with an enantiomeric purity of 57% ee. For further enantioselective enzymatic hydrolyses of racemic organosilicon esters, with the carbon atom as the center of chirality, see References 63 and 64. 

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