Efficient Asymmetric Synthesis of (S)-N-Boc-3-hydroxypiperidine by Coexpressing Ketoreductase and Glucose Dehydrogenase

Abstract

(S)-N-Boc-3-hydroxypiperidine is an important intermediate of the anticancer drug ibrutinib and is mainly synthesized by the asymmetric reduction catalyzed by ketoreductase coupled with glucose dehydrogenase at present. In this study, the coexpression recombinant strains E. coli/pET28-K-rbs-G with single promoter and E. coli/pETDuet-K-G with double promoters were first constructed for the coexpression of ketoreductase and glucose dehydrogenase in the same cell. Then, the catalytic efficiency of E. coli/pET28-K-rbs-G for synthesizing (S)-N-Boc-3-hydroxypiperidine was found to be higher than that of E. coli/pETDuet-K-G due to the more balanced activity ratio and higher catalytic activity. On this basis, the catalytic conditions of E. coli/pET28-K-rbs-G were further optimized, and finally both the conversion of the reaction and the optical purity of the product were higher than 99%. In the end, the cell-free extract was proved to be a better catalyst than the whole cell with the improved catalytic efficiency of different recombinant strains. This study developed a better coexpression strategy for ketoreductase and glucose dehydrogenase by investigating the effect of activity ratios and forms of the biocatalysts on the catalytic efficiency deeply, which provided a research basis for the efficient synthesis of chiral compounds.