Engineering an Enantioselective Amine Oxidase for the Synthesis of Pharmaceutical Building Blocks and Alkaloid Natural Products.
Ghislieri, D., Green, A.P., Pontini, M., Willies, S.C., Rowles, I., Frank, A., Grogan, G., Turner, N.J.(2013) J Am Chem Soc 135: 10863
- PubMed: 23808566
- DOI: https://doi.org/10.1021/ja4051235
- Primary Citation of Related Structures:
3ZDN - PubMed Abstract:
The development of cost-effective and sustainable catalytic methods for the production of enantiomerically pure chiral amines is a key challenge facing the pharmaceutical and fine chemical industries. This challenge is highlighted by the estimate that 40-45% of drug candidates contain a chiral amine, fueling a demand for broadly applicable synthetic methods that deliver target structures in high yield and enantiomeric excess. Herein we describe the development and application of a "toolbox" of monoamine oxidase variants from Aspergillus niger (MAO-N) which display remarkable substrate scope and tolerance for sterically demanding motifs, including a new variant, which exhibits high activity and enantioselectivity toward substrates containing the aminodiphenylmethane (benzhydrylamine) template. By combining rational structure-guided engineering with high-throughput screening, it has been possible to expand the substrate scope of MAO-N to accommodate amine substrates containing bulky aryl substituents. These engineered MAO-N biocatalysts have been applied in deracemization reactions for the efficient asymmetric synthesis of the generic active pharmaceutical ingredients Solifenacin and Levocetirizine as well as the natural products (R)-coniine, (R)-eleagnine, and (R)-leptaflorine. We also report a novel MAO-N mediated asymmetric oxidative Pictet-Spengler approach to the synthesis of (R)-harmicine.
Organizational Affiliation:
School of Chemistry, Manchester Institute of Biotechnology, University of Manchester, 131 Princess Street, Manchester M1 7DN, United Kingdom.