Sciencemadness Discussion Board

Yeast mediated reduction

phendrol - 10-9-2012 at 05:28

US patent 7723065 describes a yeast mediated reduction.
Quote:
Organic compounds, such as precursors for aryl ethylamines such as ephedrine, aryl propylamines such as fluoxetine and propionic acid derivatives such as ibuprofen, naproxen and fenoprofen, are subjected to a yeast mediated reduction conducted in the absence of a solvent. The yeast is moistened with water and contacted with the organic compound. The yeast may then be contacted with an organic solvent to dissolve the product of the reaction into the solvent, and a solid/liquid separation used to separate the product from the yeast.


Does it mean that I can just mix benzaldehyde with almost dry yeast and after a while I'm going to get loads of L-PAC? Sounds to clean and easy to be true... I haven't got any spare aldehydes or ketones to experiment with it at the moment. Anyone read about it or tried it?

bbartlog - 10-9-2012 at 18:15

You are confused. Benzaldehyde can be used as a feedstock for yeast-based synthesis of phenylacetylcarbinol, but this is some sort of enzymatically catalyzed condensation reaction involving fermentation (and pyruvates). The patent you mention describes a reduction of various substrates, without any fermentation. I suppose the yeast itself functions as a reducing agent. I would be rather skeptical of its value anyway; it covers some huge class of compounds via the usual combinatoric language (choose moieties R8 R9 and R10 from blah blah blah, etc.) without much guidance as to actual feasibility, yields, etc.

[Edited on 11-9-2012 by bbartlog]