Current Organic Chemistry - Volume 16, Issue 21, 2012

Ionic Liquids (ILs) have emerged in the last decade as a novel technology to be applied in biocatalysis (among other areas of chemistry). Most of the work has focused on 2nd generation of ILs, a broad palette of tuneable solvents yet with still high prices for commercial applications. It is thus expected that such know-how will be transferred to 3rd generation of ILs and to deep-eutectic-solvents (DES), as the greener and more Read More

Laccases represent versatile catalysts being able to oxidize a wide range of aromatic substrates and are susceptible of several industrial applications based on both oxidative degradation reactions and synthetic chemistry. The range of laccase based synthetic reactions is extremely wide. Laccases are able to catalyze transformation of antibiotics based on both β-lactams functionalization and phtalides functionalizatio Read More

Nowadays, the design of sustainable processes applicable at industrial scale is highly desirable due to environmental reasons. The use of biocatalytic reactions to carry out oxidative transformations is one of the possible strategies framed in here due to the mildness and usually high selectivities achieved with these methods. Anyway, while implementing this type of system at industrial scale several drawbacks must b Read More

Oxidases represent a distinct and interesting class of oxidative biocatalysts. A major portion of the known oxidases contain a flavin as cofactor, with glucose oxidase as best known example. While a number of oxidases are well known in the field of biocatalysis, the total number of available oxidases is rather limited. However, by analysis of literature data and genome sequences a clear picture emerges: nature harbors a larg Read More

Research on steroid biooxidation is being pursued for development of processes exploitable by the pharmaceutical industry, and also for the purpose of preparation of potentially useful steroid analogues which are otherwise inaccessible. The use of enzymes provides high regio- and stereoselectivity of the reaction to be performed. In this work a review of recent and important findings related to microbial and enzym Read More

Haloperoxidases have been the only halogenating enzymes know for more than 35 years. They produce in general free hypohalous acid which acts as the halogenating agent and leads thus to a product formation almost identical to chemical halogenation reactions using electrophilic halogen species. With the detection of FADH2-dependent halogenases a type of enzymes was found that shows high substrate specificity and cat Read More

Oxidative enzymes constitute privileged catalysts in organic synthesis. Environmentally benign reaction conditions along with high selectivity are the most appealing characteristic shown by these biocatalysts in contrast to classical metal-based reagents. The present review surveys new perspectives and concepts derived from oxidative enzymatic processes, comprising oxidative C-C bond forming reactions, atroposelecti Read More

Cashew nut shell liquid (CNSL) is a largely available by-product of the cashew agro-industry. In this paper, the main constituents (cardanol, cardol and methylcardol) obtained after separation of the CNSL mixture have been used as starting material to prepare a variety of novel mono- and bis-benzoxazines via cyclization reactions with formaldehyde and aromatic amine derivatives under mild conditions. These model reactions Read More