A one‐pot deracemization strategy for α‐chiral amines is reported involving an enantioselective deamination to the corresponding ketone followed by a stereoselective amination by enantiocomplementary biocatalysts. Notably, this cascade employing a ω‐transaminase and amine dehydrogenase enabled the access to both (R)‐and (S)‐amine products, just by controlling the directions of the reactions catalyzed by them. A wide range of (R)‐and (S)‐amines was obtained with excellent conversions (>80 %) and enantiomeric excess (>99 % ee). Finally, preparative scale syntheses led to obtain enantiopure (R)‐ and (S)‐13 with the isolated yields of 53 and 75 %, respectively.

Here, we report a bienzymatic cascade to produce β-amino acids as an intermediate for the synthesis of the leading oral antidiabetic drug, sitagliptin. A whole-cell biotransformation using recombinant Escherichia coli coexpressing a esterase and transaminase were developed, wherein the desired expression level of each enzyme was achieved by promotor engineering. The small-scale reactions (30 ml) performed under optimized conditions at varying amounts of substrate (100-300 mM) resulted in excellent conversions of 82%-95% for the desired product. Finally, a kilogramscale enzymatic reaction (250 mM substrate, 220 L) was carried out to produce β-amino acid (229 mM). Sitagliptin phosphate was chemically synthesized from β-amino acids with 82% yield and > 99% purity.

A recyclable glutamate amine donor system employing transaminase (TA), glutamate dehydrogenase (GluDH) and mutant formate dehydrogenase (FDHm) was developed, wherein amine donor Glu was regenerated using GluDH and thereby circumvented the inhibition of TA by α‐ketoglutarate. Various enantiopure β‐, γ‐amino acids, and amines were successfully synthesized with high conversions and excellent enantiomeric excess using this system.

organic phase is employed for the deoxygenation of various benzylic alcohols. -(SEO, S. W.; SONG, H. S.; SONG, J. H.; KIM, G.-H.; IN*, I.; PARK, C. P.; Tetrahedron Lett. 56 (2015) 21, 2795-2798, http://dx.