Chemoenzymatic synthesis of small molecule human therapeutics

• Published in: Current pharmaceutical design Vol. 15; no. 2; p. 134
• Main Authors: Ran, Ningqing, Rui, Eugene, Liu, Jinhua, Tao, Junhua
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United Arab Emirates 2009
• Subjects: Anti-Bacterial Agents - biosynthesis; Anticholesteremic Agents - chemical synthesis; Antidepressive Agents - chemical synthesis; Antineoplastic Agents - chemical synthesis; Biocatalysis; Biopharmaceutics; Biotechnology; Drug Design; Enzymes; Humans; Pharmaceutical Preparations - chemical synthesis; Protein Engineering - methods
• ISSN: 1873-4286
• DOI: 10.2174/138161209787002924

Pharmaceuticals have historically been produced by either chemical synthesis or whole cell fermentation. The former is applied to synthetic small molecules while the latter to natural products. As a result of recent advances in rapid discovery of enzymes through genome mining and metagenomics, and their tunability in functions and stability through directed evolution, biocatalysis is emerging to be a transformational technology for drug discovery and production. Enzymes can catalyze reactions otherwise challenging by chemical approaches. Furthermore, enzymatic catalysis is a powerful tool for green chemistry development. This manuscript gives a brief overview of current status in integrating chemical and biological transformations for the synthesis of small molecular therapeutics.