Cofactor recycling mechanism in asymmetric biocatalytic reduction of carbonyl compounds mediated by yeast: which is the efficient electron donor?

In asymmetric reduction of carbonyl compounds mediated by microorganisms, the cofactors that transfer hydride should be regenerated by using a recycling system. In most cases, this recycling system consists of carbohydrate molecules, especially glucose or sucrose. Other molecules such as ethanol and acetate have been used as electron donors too. The reduction can even be conducted without added electron donors. To improve biocatalytic synthesis, it is important to understand the cofactor recycling mechanism. In this work, the hydride-transfer mechanism in cofactor regeneration, which takes place in bioreduction mediated by yeast, was studied by means of an isotope tracing technique. The results show that, when glucose was used, the NADH involved in the glycolysis was consumed directly in the formation of ethanol and was not used in the bioreduction. Hence, the regeneration of cofactors in the reduction is not coupled with glycolysis. Nevertheless, glucose is an efficient electron donor that transfers hydride through the hexose monophosphate (HMP) pathway in which the main hydrogen source is C-1 and C-3 hydrogen of glucose. Ethanol is not a good electron donor, since, when it was used, only a small quantity of hydrogen was transferred from this molecule, and the main hydrogen source was water. Therefore, the ethanol oxidation pathway may not be efficient. In the absence of added auxiliary substrates, the yeast cells may use electron donors stored in its cellules. However, in this case we observed that the main hydrogen source for cofactor recycling was water, while only very few hydrogen atoms were from unexchangeable sites. This is similar to the case in which ethanol is used, and is in contradiction with the HMP pathway if stored glucose was the electron donor. The question that remains to be investigated is "what is the efficient electron donor recycling mechanism in the yeast cellules?"