Login / Signup

An Enzymatic N-Acylation Step Enables the Biocatalytic Synthesis of Unnatural Sialosides.

Pedro LabordaYong-Mei LyuFabio ParmeggianiAi-Min LuWen-Jiao WangYing-Ying HuangKun HuangJuan GuoLi LiuSabine L FlitschJosef Voglmeir
Published in: Angewandte Chemie (International ed. in English) (2020)
Chitin is one of the most abundant and cheaply available biopolymers in Nature. Chitin has become a valuable starting material for many biotechnological products through manipulation of its N-acetyl functionality, which can be cleaved under mild conditions using the enzyme family of de-N-acetylases. However, the chemoselective enzymatic re-acylation of glucosamine derivatives, which can introduce new stable functionalities into chitin derivatives, is much less explored. Herein we describe an acylase (CmCDA from Cyclobacterium marinum) that catalyzes the N-acylation of glycosamine with a range of carboxylic acids under physiological reaction conditions. This biocatalyst closes an important gap in allowing the conversion of chitin into complex glycosides, such as C5-modified sialosides, through the use of highly selective enzyme cascades.
Keyphrases
  • hydrogen peroxide
  • structure activity relationship