Premium
Efficient Synthesis of Phenylacetate and 2‐Phenylethanol by Modular Cascade Biocatalysis
Author(s) -
Mao Zuoxi,
Liu Lijun,
Zhang Yang,
Yuan Jifeng
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
chembiochem
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.05
H-Index - 126
eISSN - 1439-7633
pISSN - 1439-4227
DOI - 10.1002/cbic.202000182
Subject(s) - biotransformation , biocatalysis , phenylacetic acid , aldehyde , chemistry , bioconversion , phenylalanine , cascade reaction , organic chemistry , enzyme , amino acid , biochemistry , fermentation , catalysis , reaction mechanism
The green and sustainable synthesis of chemicals from renewable feedstocks by a biotransformation approach has gained increasing attention in recent years. In this work, we developed enzymatic cascades to efficiently convert l ‐phenylalanine into 2‐phenylethanol (2‐PE) and phenylacetic acid (PAA), l ‐tyrosine into tyrosol ( p ‐hydroxyphenylethanol, p ‐HPE) and p ‐hydroxyphenylacetic acid ( p ‐HPAA). The enzymatic cascade was cast into an aromatic aldehyde formation module, followed by an aldehyde reduction module, or aldehyde oxidation module, to achieve one‐pot biotransformation by using recombinant Escherichia coli . Biotransformation of 50 mM l ‐Phe produced 6.76 g/L PAA with more than 99 % conversion and 5.95 g/L of 2‐PE with 97 % conversion. The bioconversion efficiencies of p ‐HPAA and p ‐HPE from l ‐Tyr reached to 88 and 94 %, respectively. In addition, m ‐fluoro‐phenylalanine was further employed as an unnatural aromatic amino acid substrate to obtain m ‐fluoro‐phenylacetic acid; >96 % conversion was achieved. Our results thus demonstrated high‐yielding and potential industrial synthesis of above aromatic compounds by one‐pot cascade biocatalysis.