Immobilised Escherichia coli BL21 as a catalyst for the synthesis of adenine and hypoxanthine nucleosides.

JORGE TRELLES; LETICIA BENTANCOR; ALEJANDRA SCHOIJET; SILVIA PORRO; ELIZABETH LEWKOWICZ; JOSE VICENTE SINISTERRA; ADOLFO IRIBARREN

Chemistry and Biodiversity

Wiley Interscience VCH

Lugar: Suiza; Año: 2004 vol. 1 p. 380 - 388

1612-1872

Different supports such as alginate, agar, agarose and polyacrylamide were employed to immobilise E. coli BL 21 by entrapment techniques.  The transglycosylation reaction involved in the synthesis of adenosine from uridine and adenine was chosen as a model system in order to study the characteristics of these biocatalysts.  Whole cells immobilised on agarose proved to be the best biocatalyst since they could be reused 30 times without significant loss of activity.  This biocatalyst was further employed to test its ability in the synthesis of other adenine and hypoxanthine nucleosides. Ribo-, 2’-deoxyribo- and arabinonucleosides could be prepared in high yields starting from the corresponding pyrimidine nucleosides and purine bases. Similar product yields were obtained using both free and immobilised cells, though in the latter case longer reaction time was necessary.