title: Features and technical applications of ω-transaminases.
abstract: Chiral amines in enantiopure forms are important chemical building blocks, which are most well recognized in the pharmaceutical industries for imparting desirable biological activity to chemical entities. A number of synthetic strategies to produce chiral amines via biocatalytic as well as chemical transformation have been developed. Recently, ω-transaminase (ω-TA) has attracted growing attention as a promising catalyst which provides an environment-friendly access to production of chiral amines with exquisite stereoselectivity and excellent catalytic turnover. To obtain enantiopure amines using ω-TAs, either kinetic resolution of racemic amines or asymmetric amination of achiral ketones is employed. The latter is usually preferred because of twofold higher yield and no requirement of conversion of a ketone product back to racemic amine. However, the choice of a production process depends on several factors such as reaction equilibrium, substrate reactivity, enzyme inhibition, and commercial availability of substrates. This review summarizes the biochemical features of ω-TA, including reaction chemistry, substrate specificity, and active site structure, and then introduces recent advances in expanding the scope of ω-TA reaction by protein engineering and public database searching. We also address crucial factors to be considered for the development of efficient ω-TA processes.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biotechnology, Yonsei University, Seoul, South Korea.
authors.forename: M Shaheer
authors.initials: MS
authors.lastname: Malik
authors.forename: Eul-Soo
authors.initials: ES
authors.lastname: Park
authors.forename: Jong-Shik
authors.initials: JS
authors.lastname: Shin
mesh_terms: D001679:Biogenic Amines / Q000378:metabolism*; D001709:Biotechnology / Q000379:methods*; D020134:Catalytic Domain; D008956:Models, Chemical; D008958:Models, Molecular; D013678:Technology, Pharmaceutical / Q000379:methods*; D000637:Transaminases / Q000737:chemistry / Q000378:metabolism*
chemical_list: D001679:Biogenic Amines; D000637:Transaminases