The unexpected kinetic effect of enzyme mixture: The case of enzymatic esterification

Enzymatic Synergism in the Synthesis of β‐Keto Esters

“…To find out which enzyme catalyzes the model reaction, a series of experiments with each enzyme alone was performed (Table 1). For each enzyme separately the yield of isolated product was lower than 1 % (entries 5–8), which is consistent with results obtained in esterification of carboxylic acids 25. To identify the catalytic effect of enzyme pairs, a second set of experiments was performed.…”

“…The mixture of enzymes appeared to be an excellent catalyst system not only for the esterification of carboxylic acids,25 but also for the transesterification of acetoacetates, and its use enables the synthesis of β‐keto esters. It is clear from Table 2 that the conversion from ethyl/ tert ‐butyl keto esters into higher homologues appears to be efficient and practical through this procedure.…”

“…We recently reported the utilization of an enzyme mixture for the enzyme‐catalyzed esterification of a range of carboxylic acids, providing the respective esters in excellent yields 25. Although there are a few examples of enzymatic synergy in degrading plant polymers by glucosidases and xylanases in aqueous medium,26 this was, to our knowledge, the first evidence of the cooperation between multiple enzymes in organic solvents.…”

Enantioselective Reduction of Ethyl 3‐Oxo‐5‐phenylpentanoate with Whole‐Cell Biocatalysts

“…The product was obtained as a colorless oil (16.7 mmol, 3.7 g, 45 %). 1 Ethyl 3-Oxo-5-phenylpentanoate (2): Jones reagent was prepared by the addition of concentrated H 2 SO 4 (30 mL) to CrO 3 (33.5 g) followed by careful dilution with water to give 250 mL of total solution. Then Jones reagent (17 mL, 17 mmol) was added dropwise to a stirred solution of ethyl 3-hydroxy-5-phenylpentanoate (16 mmol, 3.55 g) in acetone (70 mL) at 0°C.…”

“…Enantiomerically pure -hydroxy esters [1] have been used as building blocks for the synthesis of a variety of chemicals, including -lactams, [2] carotenoids, [3] insect pheromones [4] and 2,3-dihydro-4H-pyran-4-ones. [5] To date, only a few reports have described the asymmetric synthesis of 3-hydroxy-5-phenylpentanoic acid derivatives.…”