Influence of the hydrostatic pressure and pH on the asymmetric 2-hydroxyketone formation catalyzed by Pseudomonas putida benzoylformate decarboxylase and variants thereof

Shift of the reaction equilibrium at high pressure in the continuous synthesis of neuraminic acid

The importance of a compound that helps fight against influenza is, in times of a pandemic, self-evident. In order to produce these compounds in vast quantities, many researchers consider continuous flow reactors in chemical industry as next stepping stone for large scale production. For these reasons, the synthesis of N-acetylneuraminic acid (Neu5Ac) in a continuous fixed-bed reactor by an immobilized epimerase and aldolase was investigated in detail. The immobilized enzymes showed high stability, with half-life times > 173 days under storage conditions (6 °C in buffer) and reusability over 50 recycling steps, and were characterized regarding the reaction kinetics (initial rate) and scalability (different lab scales) in a batch reactor. The reaction kinetics were studied in a continuous flow reactor. A high-pressure circular reactor (up to 130 MPa) was applied for the investigation of changes in the position of the reaction equilibrium. By this, equilibrium conversion, selectivity, and yield were increased from 57.9% to 63.9%, 81.9% to 84.7%, and 47.5% to 54.1%, respectively. This indicates a reduction in molar volume from N-acetyl-ᴅ-glucosamine (GlcNAc) and pyruvate (Pyr) to Neu5Ac. In particular, the circular reactor showed great potential to study reactions at high pressure while allowing for easy sampling. Additionally, an increase in affinity of pyruvate towards both tested enzymes was observed when high pressure was applied, as evidenced by a decrease of K_I for the epimerase and K_M for the aldolase from 108 to 42 mM and 91 to 37 mM, respectively.

Bacterial mandelic acid degradation pathway and its application in biotechnology

Mandelic acid and its derivatives are an important class of chemical synthetic blocks, which is widely used in drug synthesis and stereochemistry research. In nature, mandelic acid degradation pathway has been widely identified and analyzed as a representative pathway of aromatic compounds degradation. The most studied mandelic acid degradation pathway from Pseudomonas putida consists of mandelate racemase, S-mandelate dehydrogenase, benzoylformate decarboxylase, benzaldehyde dehydrogenase and downstream benzoic acid degradation pathways. Because of the ability to catalyze various reactions of aromatic substrates, pathway enzymes have been widely used in biocatalysis, kinetic resolution, chiral compounds synthesis or construction of new metabolic pathways. In this paper, the physiological significance and the existing range of the mandelic acid degradation pathway were introduced first. Then each of the enzymes in the pathway is reviewed one by one, including the researches on enzymatic properties and the applications in biotechnology as well as efforts that have been made to modify the substrate specificity or improving catalytic activity by enzyme engineering to adapt different applications. The composition of the important metabolic pathway of bacterial mandelic acid degradation pathway as well as the researches and applications of pathway enzymes is summarized in this review for the first time.