Efficient asymmetric synthesis of chiral amines by combining transaminase and pyruvate decarboxylase.

Chiral amines and amino acids play an important role in the pharmaceutical, agrochemical and chemical industry. They are frequently used as synthons for the preparation of various pharmaceutically active substances and agrochemicals, or as resolving agents for chiral acids. Consequently, there is a need for efficient methods to obtain the desired R or S enantiomer in an optically pure form. The most frequently used enzymatic method for the production of optically active amines is the kinetic resolution of racemic starting material by enantioselective hydrolysis of, for ACHTUNGTRENNUNGexample, N-acyl amides by peptidases, amidases or lipases. lternatively, transaminases can be used in kinetic resolution (Scheme 1A). The maximum yield in all of these processes is limited to 50% unless a racemization step is included to