Hydantoin-hydrolysing enzymes for the enantioselective production of amino acids: New insights and applications

Abstract

A review of recent progress in hydantoinase biocatalysis, reporting both new reactions and new understanding of the enzyme systems. This report describes recent discoveries and new applications in the field of hydantoinase biocatalysis with particular attention to stereoselective reactions and new mechanistic understanding of stereocontrol as well as new enantiopure products and novel applications. Hydantoin-hydrolysing systems comprise hydantoinase and N-carbamoylamino acid amidohydrolase (NCAAH) enzymes, which sequentially catalyse hydrolytic hydantoin ring opening and hydrolytic cleavage of N-carbamoyl groups, respectively, yielding enantiopure amino acids, which may be non-natural, and may have the l- or d-configuration. © 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.