The methods of molecular mechanics and semiempirical quantum mechanics have been used to investigate the steric and electrostatic features for a group of lipid-like molecules. Included in this group were trilaurin (LLL), tridecyl 1,2,3-propanetricarboxylate (TPT), and a family of short and long acid triacylglycerol molecules (SALATRIM). Computational studies on all of the molecules in the gas phase indicated that the hydrophobic interactions between the fatty acid chains were dominant in determining the molecular conformation. Analysis also showed that the triacylglycerols (LLL and SALATRIM) have similar molecular electrostatic potentials (EP). This electronic similarity suggests that one might expect similar reactivity toward lipase-mediated hydrolysis. A very different EP map was found for TPT, a compound which has each ester linkage molecularly reversed. TPT appears to be resistant to lipolysis, as evidenced by the near total lack of digestibility of this type of lipid in published in-vivo studies conducted in rodents.

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A biphasic system containing NADPH and glucose with a cell-free extract of a recombinant E. coli BL21(DE3)(pETSCR1) is developed to reduce alkyl aryl ketones to the corresponding alcohols with excellent enantioselectivities. -(YAN, Z.; NIE, Y.; XU*, Y.; LIU, X.; XIAO, R.; Tetrahedron Lett. 52 (2011) 9, 999-1002, http://dx.