Microbial biotransformations: Steroselective synthesis of pharmaceutical drug precursors

Biotransformations are becoming increasingly popular in the production of enantio- and regiopure- intermediates for synthesis of complex organic compounds. Whole microbial cells or enzymes can be used to carry out such specific chemical reactions that are otherwise difficult to achieve synthetically. Chemoenzymatic synthesis is of particular interest in the pharmaceutical industry where some steps can be carried out enzymatically to obtain chiral synthons for further enzymatic/chemical processing. In this report, we discuss some recent developments in the field together with a few examples