Current Status of Amine Dehydrogenases: From Active Site Architecture to Diverse Applications Across a Broad Substrate Spectrum

Abstract

Amine dehydrogenases (AmDHs) are NAD(P)H-dependent oxidoreductases that catalyze the reductive amination between carbonyl compounds and ammonia as the amine donor yielding valuable amines, typically with excellent enantioselectivity. While nature has provided enzymes with inherent AmDH activities, protein engineering techniques allowed researchers to expand the toolbox of available AmDHs, extend their substrate scope, improve their catalytic activities and stability under synthetically relevant conditions and even enable new reactivity concepts. The biocatalytic synthesis of amines using AmDHs has matured to a point where hundreds of aldehydes or ketones, of varying steric demands and bearing diverse functional groups, can be efficiently transformed. This review offers an overview of the available AmDHs and their substrate spectrum, covering from structural and evolutionary analyses to diverse methods employing these enzymes. Depending on the catalytic activities of other enzymes as reaction partners, AmDHs were applied in kinetic resolution (KR) and deracemization processes, cascade reactions for the amination of alcohols and alkenes or for the synthesis of amines and amino alcohols featuring multiple stereogenic centers. Moreover, the synthetic potential of AmDHs in novel pathways, such as the synthesis of secondary amines or alcohols, presents exciting opportunities for expanding their catalytic repertoire.