A tailor-made chimeric thiamine diphosphate dependent enzyme for the direct asymmetric synthesis of (S)-benzoins.

ABSTRACT

Thiamine diphosphate dependent enzymes are well known for catalyzing the asymmetric synthesis of chiral α-hydroxy ketones from simple prochiral substrates. The steric and chemical properties of the enzyme active site define the product spectrum. Enzymes catalyzing the carboligation of aromatic aldehydes to (S)-benzoins have not so far been identified. We were able to close this gap by constructing a chimeric enzyme, which catalyzes the synthesis of various (S)-benzoins with excellent enantiomeric excess (>99%) and very good conversion.