Enhanced semi‐preparative biotransformation of cumene dioxygenase : from analytical scale to product isolation

Abstract

Scale‐up of oxygenase catalyzed reactions is often challenging due to the limited oxygen mass transfer in aqueous solutions. To overcome such limitation, we studied different scale‐up conditions using recombinant resting cells of E. coli JM109(DE3), harboring the cumene dioxygenase of Pseudomonas fluorescens IP01, for the dihydroxylation of naphthalene to (1R,2S)‐cis‐1,2‐dihydro‐1,2‐naphthalenediol. Thereby, vigorous stirring of the biotransformation in a 2 L round bottom flask in combination with an oxygen‐enriched headspace exhibited outstanding product formation after 1 h. Furthermore, the enhanced setup was used for the cumene dioxygenase catalyzed biosynthesis of 240 mg of valuable (+)‐trans‐carveol from (R)‐(+)‐limonene, demonstrating the application of our workflow for volatile compounds.