Synthesis of α,β-unsaturated esters via a chemo-enzymatic chain elongation approach by combining carboxylic acid reduction and Wittig reaction

• Yitao Duan,
• Peiyuan Yao,
• Yuncheng Du,
• Jinhui Feng,
• Qiaqing Wu and
• Dunming Zhu

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2015, 11, 2245–2251, doi:10.3762/bjoc.11.243

• high identity with the carboxylic acid reductase (CAR) gene from Nocardia iowensis. These two putative CAR genes were cloned, overexpressed in E. coli and one of two proteins could reduce 1a. The recombinant CAR was purified and characterized. The enzyme exhibited high activity toward a variety of

• synthesis of these important compounds. Keywords: α,β-unsaturated esters; carboxylic acid reductase; chemoenzymatic synthesis; reduction; Wittig reaction; Introduction α,β-Unsaturated esters are versatile building blocks for organic synthesis and of significant importance for industrial applications [1][2

• available in our laboratory were screened for the carboxylic acid reductase activity using phenylacetic acid (1a) as the substrate by GC analysis of the products. Among them, Mycobacterium sp. was found to catalyse the reduction of 1a to 2-phenyl-1-ethanol (1c) with low conversion (Supporting Information

Natural product biosyntheses in cyanobacteria: A treasure trove of unique enzymes

• Jan-Christoph Kehr,
• Douglas Gatte Picchi and
• Elke Dittmann

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2011, 7, 1622–1635, doi:10.3762/bjoc.7.191

• , which is synthesized from L-leucine by the zinc-dependent long-chain dehydrogenase NosE and the Δ1-pyrroline-5-carboxylic acid reductase homologue NosF (Figure 8) [54]. Nostocyclopeptide The nostocyclopeptide 14 pathway is one of the few pure NRPS assembly lines of cyanobacteria and has been described