Biocatalytic Potential of the Epoxide Hydrolase from Agrobacterium radiobacter AD1 and a Mutant with Enhanced Enantioselectivity

Optically pure epoxides are useful synthons for a variety of biologically active compounds. The epoxide hydrolase obtained from Agrobacterium radiobacter AD1 hydrolyses racemic aryl epoxides with moderate and aliphatic epoxides with low enantioselectivity. The three-dimensional structure of this enzyme indicates that two tyrosine residues interact with the epoxide oxygen. Mutating one of these, tyrosine 215, to a phenylalanine (Y215F) resulted in an enzyme with increased enantioselectivity towards aryl epoxides. The relatively strong decrease in activity towards the remaining enantiomers makes this enzyme a much better biocatalyst than the wild-type enzyme for the preparation of optically pure (S)-styrene oxide derivatives