Biosynthesis of Chemicals

Description

The maturing petroleum-based chemical industry, the pressures of environmental constraints and the explosive development of biotechnology have increased the interest in catalysis in enzymology. Enzymes are now an attractive proposition as catalysts for new classes of reagents and products, especially sugars, chiral synthons, metabolites and food components. Sometimes it is really hard to obtain the desired product from chemistry synthesis, especially when the scheme is very long. The best way to solve the problem is enzyme synthesis, semi-enzyme synthesis or fermentation. Enzymes are the proteins which catalyse reactions in living cells and they have evolved to cope with specific tasks in biosynthetic or metabolic reactions. One of the biggest advantage of using enzyme in organic synthesis is the good selectivity. With enzymes, enantioselectivities of 99%+ e.e. can be achieved when synthesis the chiral compounds.