Improving the industrial production of 6-APA: enzymatic hydrolysis of penicillin G in the presence of organic solvents.

The hydrolysis of penicillin G in the presence of an organic solvent, used with the purpose of extracting it from the culture medium, may greatly simplify the industrial preparation of 6-APA. However, under these conditions, PGA immobilized onto Eupergit displays very low stability (half-life of 5 h in butanone-saturated water) and a significant degree of inhibition by the organic solvent (30%). The negative effect of the organic solvent strongly depended on the type of solvent utilized: water saturated with butanone (around 28% v/v) had a much more pronounced negative effect than that of methylisobutyl ketone (MIBK) (solubility in water was only 2%). These problems were sorted out by using a new penicillin G acylase derivative designed to work in the presence of organic solvents (with each enzyme molecule surrounded by an hydrophilic artificial environment) and a suitable organic solvent (MIBK). Using such solvent, this derivative kept its activity unaltered for 1 week at 32 degrees C. Moreover, the enzyme activity was hardly inhibited by the presence of the organic solvent. In this way, the new enzyme derivative thus prepared enables simplification of the industrial hydrolysis of penicillin G.