Yeast Catalysed Reduction of β-Keto Esters (1): Factors Affecting Whole-Cell Catalytic Activity and Stereoselectivity

Efficient bioconversion of furfural to furfuryl alcohol by Bacillus coagulans NL01

Bio-catalysis is an attractive alternative to replace chemical methods due to its high selectivity and mild reaction conditions. Furfural is an important bio-based platform compound generated from biomass. Herein, the bio-catalytic reduction of furfural (FAL) to furfuryl alcohol (FOL) was performed by using a furfural tolerant strain, Bacillus coagulans NL01. An efficient co-substrate was explored and a high conversion and selectivity of FAL to FOL was reported over this bio-catalytic system using glucose as co-substrate. As the bioconversion occurred over 42 mM FAL, 20 g L-1 glucose and 9 mg mL-1 at 50 °C, a high conversion and selectivity was obtained by 3 h reaction. This transformation rate of FAL was the highest compared with other reactions. Furthermore, about 98 mM FOL was produced from FAL within 24 h by a fed-batch strategy with a conversion of 92% and selectivity of 96%. These results indicate that this bio-catalytic reduction of FAL has high potential for application to upgrading of FAL and B. coagulans NL01 is a promising biocatalyst for the synthesis of FOL. In addition, this bio-catalytic reduction shows a high potential application for catalytic upgrading of FAL from biomass.

Application of comparative proteome analysis to reveal influence of cultivation conditions on asymmetric bioreduction of beta-keto ester by Saccharomyces cerevisiae

Industrial bakers' yeast strain Saccharomyces cerevisiae LH1 was selected for asymmetric reduction of ethyl benzoylacetate to (S)-ethyl 3-hydroxy-3-phenylpropionate. Higher reductive efficiency and higher cofactor availability were obtained with the alternation of cultivation condition (mainly growth medium). Compared to the bioreduction by yeast cells grown in malt extract (ME) medium, the concentration of substrate was increased 25-fold (up to 15.6 g/l) in the yeast peptone dextrose (YPD)-grown cells mediated bioreduction with 97.5% of enantioselective excess of (S)-product. The proteomic responses of S. cerevisiae LH1 cells to growth in aerobic batch cultures fed with either YPD or ME medium were examined and compared. Among the relative quantities of 550 protein spots in each gel, changes were shown in the expression level of 102 intracellular proteins when comparing YPD gel to ME gel. Most of the identified proteins were involved in energy metabolism and several cellular molecular biosynthetic pathway and catabolism. For YPD-grown yeast cells, not only enzymes involved in nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate regeneration, especially 6-phosphogluconate dehydrogenase, but also alcohol dehydrogenase 1 and D: -arabinose 1-dehydrogenase which had been demonstrated activity toward ethyl benzoylacetate to (S)-hydroxy ester were significantly upregulated. These changes provided us insight in the way the yeast cells adapted to a change in cultivation medium and regulated its catalytic efficiency in the bioreduction.

Improvement on production of (R)-4-Chloro-3-hydroxybutyrate and (S)-3-hydroxy-γ-butyrolactone with recombinant Escherichia coli cells

(R)-4-Chloro-3-hydroxybutyrate (CHB) and (S)-3-hydroxy-gamma-butyrolactone (HL) are used for the synthesis of biologically and pharmacologically important compounds. Enterobacter sp. DS-S-75 was found to have the unique activity to convert (S)-CHB in the racemate to (S)-HL through asymmetric dechlorination, hydrolysis, and lactonization. As a result, the remaining (R)-CHB and formed (S)-HL could be obtained in a one-pot reaction. We purified the CHB degrading enzyme which catalyzing these reactions and isolated the coding gene from the strain DS-S-75 in order to improve the productivity of these compounds using the transformant. Interestingly, the purified enzyme showed not only dechlorinating, but also hydrolyzing activities on CHB and the similar carboxylic esters, it was then designated CHB hydrolase, and appears to be a novel enzyme. The gene had 1101 bp encoding 367 amino acids including a signal peptide composed of 25 residues. The deduced amino acid sequence contained a conserved region generally found in esterases and lipases, but did not have significant similarity. When asymmetric degradation of racemic methyl CHB (CHBM) was performed using a culture broth of Escherichia coli DH5alpha transformed with the isolated gene, the reaction time was shortened 20-fold over that of the strain DS-S-75, and the maximum concentration of the substrate could be increased from 8% to 15% (w/v). Moreover, both of the obtained residual (R)-CHBM and the formed (S)-HL had high optical purities (>99% e.e.).

Asymmetric reduction of ethyl 2-methyl e-oxobutanoate by fungi

Seven fungi, which are found to reduce ethyl 3-oxobutanoate in high yields, were tested for their reducing ability for ethyl 2-methyl 3-oxobutanoate. We obtained some interesting findings. In particular, Penicillium purpurogenum reduced ethyl 2-methyl 3-oxobutanoate to the corresponding alcohols with the diastereomer (anti/syn) ratio of 93/7 with the enantiomeric excess of anti-(2S,3S)- and syn-(2S,3R)- hydroxy esters of 90 and >99 ee%, respectively.

Asymmetric reduction of ethyl 2-methyl 3-oxobutanoate by Chlorella

Chlorella pyrenoidosa Chick reduced ethyl 2-methyl 3-oxobutanoate to the corresponding alcohols with the diastereomer (anti/syn) ratio of 53/47. The enantiomer excesses of anti-(2S, 3S)- and syn-(2S, 3R)-hydroxy esters were 89 and > 99ee% respectively. C. vulgaris and C. regularis afforded predominantly the syn-isomer, contrary to C. pyrenoidosa. The differences in the activity of reducing ethyl 2-methyl 3-oxobutanoate were observed among three strains of Chlorella. Addition of 2% metal salts slightly increased the chemical yield of the hydroxy ester.

Asymmetric direduction of 1,2-indanedione to cis (1S,2R) indanediol by Trichosporon cutaneum MY 1506

Cis (1S,2R) indanediol is a potential precursor to (-)-cis (1S,2R)-1-aminoindan-2-ol, a key chiral synthon for a leading HIV protease inhibitor, Crixivan (Indinavir). A potential route to the biosynthesis of this important precursor, the microbial asymmetric direduction of 1,2-indanedione to its corresponding diol, cis (1S,2R) indanediol, was investigated. The screening of 32 yeast strains yielded Trichosporon cutaneum MY 1506 as a suitable biocatalyst. At the 2-l shake-flask scale, 1,2-indanedione (charged at 1.0 g/l) was bioconverted to cis (1S,2R) indanediol at a final bioconversion yield of 99.1% and an enantiomeric excess of >99%. When scaled up in a 23-l bioreactor, T. cutaneum produced 8.4 g of pure cis (1S,2R) indanediol, and the isolated yield of cis (1S,2R) indanediol was 52%. Purification of the scale-up also yielded 0.9 g of the more polar trans (1S,2R) indanediol diastereomer, a minor bioreduction product. Supercritical fluid chromatography analyses of the purified cis (1S,2R) and trans (1S,2S) indanediol demonstrated that the enantiomeric excesses during this bioconversion scale-up were 99% and 26%, respectively.