ABSTRACT
Recently, environment-friendly green or clean chemistry is emphasized in the eld of organic and natural product chemistry. Noyori’s highly efcient production of (−)-menthol using (S)-BINAP-Rh catalyst is one of the most important green chemistries (Otsuka and Tani, 1991; Tani et al., 1982), and 1000 ton of (−)-menthol has been produced by this method in 1 year. On the other hand, enzymes of microorganisms and mammals are able to transform a huge variety of organic compounds, such as mono-, sesqui-, and diterpenoids, alkaloids, steroids, antibiotics, and amino acids from crude drugs and spore-forming green plants to produce pharmacologically and medicinally valuable substances.
