Multienzyme-Catalysed Reactions

Abstract

This chapter collects all the major progress in the field of enantioselective tandem reactions promoted by multiple enzyme catalysts. It is divided into three sections dealing successively with multienzymatic synthesis of chiral alcohols, multienzymatic synthesis of chiral amines and amino acids, and other multienzymatic reactions. The first section, concerning the multienzymatic synthesis of chiral alcohols, is subdivided into two paragraphs dealing successively with the deracemisation of alcohols via stereoinversion, and multienzymatic cascade reactions. The second section, concerning the multienzymatic synthesis of chiral amines and amino acids, is subdivided into three paragraphs dealing successively with the synthesis of chiral amines with ω-transaminases, the synthesis of chiral amino acids with α-transaminases, and the synthesis of chiral amino acids with other enzymes. This chapter highlights that it is now evident that the multienzyme synthesis of natural and important products has passed from feasibility to practical reality and that there is no limit to the number of enzymes that can be combined in a single reactor to produce a chiral complex structure in good yield and in a one-pot fashion.