Chiral compounds from bacterial polyesters: Sugars to plastics to fine chemicals
✍ Scribed by Sang Yup Lee; Young Lee; Fulai Wang
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 1999
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 97 KB
- Volume
- 65
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0006-3592
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✦ Synopsis
A novel and efficient method for the production of enantiomerically pure (R)-(-)-hydroxycarboxylic acids by in vivo depolymerization of microbial polyester polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs) was developed. Using this method, several model compounds, (R )-(-)-3hydroxyalkanoic acids, consisting of 4 to 12 carbon atoms, and (R)-(-)-3-hydroxy-5-phenylvaleric acid, could be prepared. In particular, (R)-(-)-3-hydroxybutyric acid could be efficiently prepared by this method. By providing the environmental condition in which cells possess high activity of intracellular PHA depolymerase and low activity of (R)-(-)-3-hydroxybutyric acid dehydrogenase, (R)-(-)-3-hydroxybutyric acid could be produced with a yield of 96% in only 30 min by in vivo depolymerization of polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB) accumulated in Alcaligenes latus.