A biocatalytic cascade using mashed-up cells has overcome extraction and solubility problems associated with using enzymes in chemical syntheses.
Enzymes are excellent catalysts for making chiral molecules. One-pot reactions under mild conditions are often possible with more than one catalyst, allowing multi-step syntheses in one go. But if enzymes are used as catalysts, they have to be extracted and purified, and expensive co-factors often need to be added. There are also solubility issues: enzymes are usually most active in buffers, but many of their substrates are hydrophobic, limiting the productivity of the biotransformation because the substrate won’t dissolve in aqueous buffers.
It is thought that the cell envelope helps to stabilise the enzymes in organic solvent
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A two-step biocatalytic cascade in micro-aqueous medium: using whole cells to obtain high concentrations of a vicinal diol
Andre Jakoblinnerta and Dörte Rother
Green Chem., 2014, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C4GC00010B
