Aliphatic primary amines are prevalent
in natural products, pharmaceuticals,
and functional materials. While a plethora of processes are reported
for their synthesis, methods that directly install a free amine group
into C(sp3)–H bonds remain unprecedented. Here,
we report a set of new-to-nature enzymes that catalyze the direct
primary amination of C(sp3)–H bonds with excellent
chemo-, regio-, and enantioselectivity, using a readily available
hydroxylamine derivative as the nitrogen source. Directed evolution
of genetically encoded cytochrome P411 enzymes (P450s whose Cys axial
ligand to the heme iron has been replaced with Ser) generated variants
that selectively functionalize benzylic and allylic C–H bonds,
affording a broad scope of enantioenriched primary amines. This
biocatalytic process is efficient and selective (up to 3930 TTN and
96% ee), and can be performed on preparative scale.