Sustainable Biocatalytic Approaches to Pyridine and Piperidine Heterocycles

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

At present the chemicals and solvents used to make plastics, pharmaceuticals and agrochemicals are derived primarily from crude oil. As we seek to create a more sustainable world in the 21st century, our society needs to dramatically reduce its dependence upon crude oil, which means finding new, sustainable routes to make feedstock chemicals. Pyridines and piperidines are 6-membered heterocyclic rings that are commonly found in pharmaceutical drugs, and at present there is no sustainable route to substituted pyridines and piperidines. Prof Bugg's research group has discovered a biotransformation to pyridine-dicarboxylic acids from polymeric lignin found in plant biomass, using engineered Rhodococcus jostii RHA1. This proposal aims to expand this route to make a range of substituted pyridines that could be valuable feedstock chemicals. A further biotransformation is able to reduce substituted pyridines to make the corresponding saturated piperidines. We will therefore aim to use this biotransformation to generate substituted piperidines from the same route. We will also investigate the enzymes that are responsible for making the pyridine ring in Rhodococcus jostii RHA1. This research will be of considerable interest to process development scientists in the pharmaceutical industry, and we will collaborate with Astra Zeneca Pharmaceuticals to further develop this technology.