本项目致力于手性吡哆醛/吡哆胺催化体系的发展及其仿生催化α-酮酸不对称转氨化的研究。Vitamin B6，即吡哆醛/吡哆胺及其磷酸酯衍生物，在生物体内是一种非常重要的辅酶，有强大催化功能，但基于Vitamin B6的催化体系很少报道，它在不对称催化中的应用更有待发展。另外，氨基酸是一类非常重要的化合物，发展手性氨基酸的合成方法有重要意义和实用价值，氨基酸在生物内主要通过转氨化合成，转氨酶的辅酶正是吡哆醛/吡哆胺。正是在这样的背景下，本项目发展和优化新型手性吡哆醛/吡哆胺催化体系，并第一次实现手性吡哆醛/吡哆胺仿生催化α-酮酸的不对称转氨化。项目的执行有三方面的意义：(1) 发展手性吡哆醛/吡哆胺催化体系并实现它们在不对称催化中的应用；(2) 实现吡哆醛/吡哆胺仿生催化α-酮酸的不对称转氨化，发展手性氨基酸的高效、绿色的新合成方法；(3)该研究有助于进一步深入理解生物转氨化过程。

This project will focus on the development of chiral pyridoxal/pyridoxamine catalysts and their applications into biomimetic asymmetric transamination of α-Ketoacids. As an important co-enzyme, Vitamin B6 family including pyridoxal (PL), pyridoxamine (PM), and their phosphate derivatives (PLP and PMP) display highly powerful catalysis capabilities in biological systems. However, the catalysts based on vitamin B6 have rarely been reported yet and their application in asymmetric catalysis still awaits development. On the other hand, amino acids are a class of biologically and chemically significant moleculars. It would be of great interest and highly practical to develop new and efficient methods for the synthesis of chiral amino acids. Enzymatic transamination is the main process to generate amino acids in biological systems and vitamin B6 functionalizes as the co-enzyme in the biological process. It is exactly under the backgroud that we started the research and proposed the project. On the basis of early investigation, we plan to synthetically optimize the stuctures of chiral pyridoxals and pyridoxamines to develop more efficient catalysts for biomimetic asymmetric transamination of α-keto acids in the project. The importance of the research includes: (1) development of a class of novel chiral organocatalytic system inspired by vitamin B6 and successful application of the catalysts into asymmetric catalysis; (2) to realize and develop chiral-pyridoxal/pyridoxamine-catalyzed asymmetric transamination and to contribute an attractive, direct, and efficient method for the synthesis of optically active amino acids; (3) to provide more useful information for further understanding biological transamination process.