A novel thymidine phosphorylase to synthesize (halogenated) anticancer and antiviral nucleoside drugs in continuous flow

Four pharmaceutically relevant nucleoside analogues (5-fluoro-2’-deoxyuridine, 5-chloro-2’-deoxyuridine, 5-bromo-2’-deoxyuridine, and 5-iodo-2’-deoxyuridine) have been synthesized by using a novel thymidine phosphorylase from H. elongata (HeTP). Following enzyme immobilization on microbeads, the biocatalyst was implemented as a packed-bed reactor for the continuous production of halogenated nucleosides, achieving up to 90% conversion at the 10 mM scale with 30 min residence time. Taking the synthesis of Floxuridine (5-fluoro-2’-deoxyuridine) as study case, we obtained the highest space-time yield (5.5 g/L/h) reported to date. In addition, bioinformatic tools such as MD analysis and CapiPy have contributed to shine light on the catalytic performance of HeTP as well as its immobilization, respectively