Metabolically driven equilibrium shift of asymmetric amination of ketones by ω-transaminase using alanine as an amino donor.

Removal of a side product to overcome unfavorable equilibrium is a prerequisite for the asymmetric amination of ketones using ω-transaminase (ω-TA). Alanine has been preferred as an amino donor because its deamination product (i.e. pyruvate) is easily removable by several enzymatic methods. Here, we demonstrated that the removal of pyruvate by an innate metabolic pathway could afford equilibrium shift of the ω-TA reactions.