ABSTRACT
The need for chiral fine chemical intermediates has become commonplace today in light of the trend toward single enantiomer drugs manufactured by pharmaceutical companies [1-5]. In addition, as waste disposal costs skyrocket, processes developed today must emphasize environmental safety. Although, at present, chemical approaches account for the majority of processes to produce fine chemicals, biotransformation steps are making more of an impact and are being integrated into chemical process sequences, especially where the chirality of the target compound must be maintained [6,7]. New biocatalysts are being isolated and marketed by such companies as Diversa, formerly Recombinant BioCatalysis, (San Diego, CA), ThermoGen (Chicago, IL), and Altus Biologics (Cambridge, MA) [8-10]. Many of these new types of biocatalysts have altered substrate specificity and enhanced thermal stability with greater organic solvent tolerance. In addition, commercial enzyme suppliers such as Amano Enzyme Co. (Nagoya, Japan), Novo Nordisk Bioindustrials, Inc. (Danbury, CT), and Boehringer Mannheim Biochemicals (Indianapolis, IN) are promoting their enzymes for specific biotransformations. Regardless of the source of these enzymes, because they are chiral catalysts and operate under mild reaction conditions, their utility to produce chiral molecules is being exploited more and more.
