BOC Sciences is committed to using whole bacteria or enzymes extracted from microbial cells to synthesize amino acids.
Amino acids mostly contain asymmetric carbon atoms and are optically active (with different optical isomers). They mainly exist in the form of D-type and L-type isomers in nature, and play different physiological roles in organisms. Amino acid is not only the basic unit of protein, but also one of the important nutrients for human life activities. Amino acids are important raw materials for the synthesis of antibodies, hormones and enzymes in the human body, provide nutrition for living organisms, ensure the normal survival and development of living organisms, and participate in the regulation of material metabolism and information transmission in living organisms. Amino acids are widely used in medicine, health food, feed, cosmetics, pesticides, chemical industry and scientific research. The manufacturing methods of amino acids mainly include chemical synthesis, protein hydrolysis extraction, fermentation and enzymatic methods.
Compared with chemical synthesis and fermentation, enzymatic methods have many advantages. We can use enzymatic methods to realize the industrial production of various optically active amino acids that are originally produced by fermentation or chemical synthesis. Amino acids that are difficult to produce by fermentation can be produced by enzymatic methods.
We use the chemical synthesis method to prepare the substrate of the enzyme reaction, and then use the enzyme's biocatalysis to produce amino acids with low cost and high optical purity. The method we adopt has simple production process, short cycle, high product concentration, high extraction yield, less by-products, and adopts immobilization technology to realize continuous production.
Immobilized enzyme technology is a technology that uses physical or chemical means to block free enzymes in solid materials or limit them to play a catalytic role in a certain area. After the reaction, the enzyme is easy to separate from the product, there is no residual enzyme in the product, it is easy to purify, and the product has high purity. The reaction conditions are easy to adjust, and the continuous and automatic control of the reaction can be realized. The immobilized enzyme can be recycled and reused, with high utilization rate, suitable for multi-enzyme reaction.
Hydantoin is an important chiral synthetic precursor. We have developed a chiral natural amino acid and unnatural amino acid synthesis platform technology based on the Hein platform. Using D- or L-hydantoinase process to produce optically pure D-type or L-type amino acids.
Using amino acid dehydrogenase or transaminase as a ketone substrate, providing a suitable ammonia donor, adding coenzyme NAD, and performing enzymatic catalysis to obtain chiral unnatural amino acids.
Synthetic route of cysteine
Synthetic route of phenylalanine
Synthetic route of lysine
Synthetic route of tryptophan
Synthetic route of aspartic acid
Synthetic route of tyrosine