53501-96-5Relevant articles and documents
Directed evolution of the dioxygenase complex for the synthesis of furanone flavor compounds
Newman, Lisa M.,Garcia, Henry,Hudlicky, Tomas,Selifonov, Sergey A.
, p. 729 - 734 (2004)
Herein we report a new preparation of 4-hydroxy-2,5-dimethyl-2,3- dihydrofuran-3-one, the flavor compound strawberry furanone, based on a 'green' approach with a minimum number of steps. The first step is an enzymatic dioxygenation of p-xylene to form cyclohexadiene-cis-diol, followed by ring opening via ozonolysis, and ring closure to form the furanone. In efforts to improve the efficiency of the enzymatic step, a directed evolution approach was taken to increase the substrate specificity and selectivity of the toluene dioxygenase enzyme system.