be accepted by the enzyme. Generally, the enzyme exhibited
better diastereoselectivity and enantioselectivity with cyclo-
hexanone (Table 2, entries 1–12) than with cyclopentanone
and cycloheptanone (Table 2, entries 13–15). Furthermore,
both electron-donating and electron-withdrawing substituents
of aromatic aldehydes were tolerated. Notably, this nuclease
p1 catalyzed asymmetric direct aldol reaction exhibited high
selectivity. The best enantioselectivity of >99% ee (Table 2,
entry 1) and the best diastereoselectivity of >99 : 1 (anti/syn)
(Table 2, entry 7) were achieved. Moreover, the effect of sterically
hindered substituents on benzaldehydes had a great impact on
the diastereoselectivity of the reaction. When reacting with
cyclohexanone, substituted benzaldehydes (Table 2, entries 1
and 3–12) gave better diastereoselectivity than benzaldehyde
(Table 2, entry 2), substituents in the 2-position gave higher
dr values (Table 2, entries 4, 6, 7 and 11), and the best
diastereoselectivity of >99 : 1 was achieved by using the most
hindered substrate 2,6-dichlorobenzaldehyde (Table 2, entry 7).
Interestingly, anti isomers were received as the major products
by using cyclohexanone and cyclopentanone, but no diastereos-
electivity was observed by using cycloheptanone. The nuclease
p1 catalyzed-aldol reaction seems to prefer cyclohexanone than
cyclopentanone and cycloheptanone. It is also worthy to note
that this enzyme had a moderate to excellent enantioselectivity
for anti isomers, but low or no enantioselectivity for syn isomers.
Maybe the catalytic site of the nuclease p1 had a specific
selectivity for the aldol reaction. The yield of the aldol reaction
catalyzed by nuclease p1 is still low and the reaction mechanism
is unclear at the moment. Further efforts to deal with this
problem are currently underway in our laboratory.
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3. Conclusion
In summary, we have succeeded in obtaining enantiomeric aldol
products by using enzyme nuclease p1 as a new biocatalyst.
A wide range of cyclic ketones and substituted benzaldehydes
could be accepted by the enzyme. In most cases, excellent ee val-
ues and good d.r. were obtained without any additive. Notably,
this is the first highly stereoselective aldol reaction catalyzed
by enzymes besides aldolases. This biocatalytic reaction was
performed under mild and solvent-free conditions. Compared
with current chemical technologies, the nuclease p1 catalyzed
direct asymmetric aldol reaction is more economically feasible,
ecologically advantageous and sustainable by using inexpensive
regenerable resources. It is also a novel case of unnatural
activities of existing enzymes, and might be a potential synthetic
method for organic chemistry.
Acknowledgements
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Asymmetry, 1995, 6, 3023–3030; (b) E. Wehtje, J. Kaur, P. Adlercreutz,
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Soc., 2009, 131, 4294–4300.
Financial support from Natural Science Foundation Project of
CQ CSTC (2009BA5051) is gratefully acknowledged.
References
17 General procedure: A test tube was charged with nuclease p1 (5
U/mg) (200 mg), aldehyde (1.0 mmol), to which the deionized
water (30 mg) and ketone (5.0 mmol) were introduced. The resulting
mixture was stirred for the specified amount of time at 15 ◦C. The,
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188 | Green Chem., 2011, 13, 185–189
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