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Inside Back Cover: Hydroxynitrile Lyases Do Not Catalyse the Promiscuous Addition of Cyanide to Imines (ChemCatChem 6/2013)
Author(s) -
Torrelo Guzman,
Jin Jianfeng,
Hanefeld Ulf
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
chemcatchem
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Reports
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.497
H-Index - 106
eISSN - 1867-3899
pISSN - 1867-3880
DOI - 10.1002/cctc.201390029
Subject(s) - strecker amino acid synthesis , chemistry , catalysis , cyanide , biocatalysis , imine , cover (algebra) , enzyme , reaction conditions , reaction intermediate , reaction mechanism , organic chemistry , enantioselective synthesis , mechanical engineering , engineering
Blank reaction! The cover picture shows how hydroxynitrile lyases do not catalyze the addition of cyanide to an imine, which is mediated rather by the water present in the reaction media. In their Communication on p. 1304 ff., G. Torrelo et al. report that this addition, which is part of the classical Strecker synthesis, occurs in a non‐enzymatic way and two structurally different hydroxynitrile lyases do not catalyze this reaction. These results discard the promiscuous catalytic activity attributed to these enzymes more than 10 years ago.