Expanding the boundary of biocatalysis: design and optimization of in vitro tandem catalytic reactions for biochemical production

Abstract

Biocatalysts have been increasingly used in the synthesis of fine chemicals and medicinal compounds due to significant advances in enzyme discovery and engineering. To mimic the synergistic effects of cascade reactions catalyzed by multiple enzymes in nature, researchers have been developing artificial tandem enzymatic reactions in vivo by harnessing synthetic biology and metabolic engineering tools. There is also growing interest in the development of one-pot tandem enzymatic or chemo-enzymatic processes in vitro due to their neat and concise catalytic systems and product purification procedures. In this review, we will briefly summarize the strategies of designing and optimizing in vitro tandem catalytic reactions, highlight a few representative examples, and discuss the future trend in this field.

Keywords:

• Enzymatic
• chemoenzymatic
• multistep
• tandem
• in vitro

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by U.S. National Science Foundation under the CCI Center for Enabling New Technologies through Catalysis (CENTC) Phase II Renewal (CHE-1205189), U.S. National Institutes of Health (GM077596), and U.S. Department of Energy (DE-SC0018260).