Advances in biocatalysis: Enzymatic reactions and their applications

Abstract

Biocatalysis is widely studied as an alternative to conventional chemical methods in chiral synthesis due to its high selectivity and the reaction ability under mild conditions. Various types of enzymes with high stereoselectivity have been screened from nature for the purpose of preparing important chiral synthons. In this chapter, some enzymatic reactions, including enantioselective bioresolution and asymmetric biotransformation, catalyzed by hydrolases, oxidoreductases and lyases, as well as their applications to chiral synthesis are overviewed, and some special enzymatic reaction modes, such as enantioconvergent reaction, dynamic kinetic resolution, and deracemization, are described. © 2011 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.