This volume of Pharmaceutical Biocatalysis starts with a discussion on the importance of biocatalytic synthesis approaches for a sustainable and environmentally friendly production of pharmaceuticals and active pharmaceutical ingredients. Among the enzymes discussed in detail with respect to their pharmaceutical relevance are cyclic nucleotide phosphodiesterases playing an important role in modulating signal transduction in various cell types; human DOPA decarboxylase, related to Parkinson's disease and aromatic amino acid decarboxylase deficiency; and phospholipase D enzymes as drug targets. Isocitrate dehydrogenase 1 and 2 mutations are novel therapeutic targets in acute myeloid leukemia. An additional chapter is devoted to the use of enzymes for prodrug activation in cancer therapy. The other topics include small-molecule inhibitors targeting receptor tyrosine kinases in cancer, -Lactams and related compounds as antibacterials, non-vitamin K oral anticoagulants for the treatment of thromboembolic diseases, and the molecular mechanisms for statin pleiotropy and its clinical relevance in cardiovascular diseases. The last chapter is a review of lysosomal storage disorders with an overview of approved drugs for treating these disorders by enzyme replacement therapy.

Volume 7 of the Jenny Stanford Series on Biocatalysis deals with several different aspects of pharmaceuticals, which include not only various applications of drugs and their metabolism but also natural resources for active pharmaceutical ingredients as well as the removal of pharmaceutical pollution. In detail, novel approaches for developing microbial fermentation processes to produce vitamin B6 using microorganisms are described together with novel routes for vitamin B6 biosynthesis. The other topics discussed are new approaches for producing the successful anticancer drug Taxol from naturally occurring precursors, molecular farming through plant engineering as a cost-effective means to produce therapeutic and prophylactic proteins, and successful screening of potent microorganisms producing L-asparaginase for various chemotherapeutic applications. Furthermore, microbial biotransformations in the production and degradation of fluorinated pharmaceuticals are described. The other chapters inform the reader about the biotransformation of xenobiotics/drugs in living systems, the degradation of pharmaceuticals by white-rot fungi and their ligninolytic enzymes, and the removal of pharmaceutical pollution from municipal sewage using laccase.

This book provides an overview of the world market of therapeutic enzymes and enzyme inhibitors, rare diseases, orphan drugs, the costs of drug development and therapies, and enzymes in downstream processing of pharmaceuticals. It discusses carbonic anhydrase inhibitors and their multiple drug interactions, carboxylesterase inhibitors for pharmaceutical applications, employment of inhibitors for the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases, use of engineered proteins, bioactive peptides, and fibrinolytic enzymes for thrombolytic therapy, and enzymes important for the design and development of new drugs/drug metabolites such as aldehyde oxidases and cytochrome P450 enzymes and the role the latter play in vascular biology and pathophysiology. The treatment of cancer is explored in connection with enzymatic amino acid deprivation therapies and new drugs that act as chemical degraders of oncogenic proteins. The book also introduces the resistance mechanisms of cancer. Furthermore, it provides an insight into the relationship between pathological conditions of cardiovascular disease and oxidative stress. The text also focuses on the potential use of nanoparticles as carriers for enzymes with medical relevance, computer-aided drug design for the identification of multi-target directed ligands, and the development of improved therapeutics through a glycan-"designer" approach. It concludes with an introduction to the chemoenzymatic synthesis of drugs.

This book provides an actual overview of structure, function, and application of carbohydrate-modifying biocatalysts. Unlike amino acids and nucleic acids, carbohydrates have been disregarded for a long time by the scientific community, mainly due to their complex structure and a lack of suited experimental methods for structure determination. Meanwhile, the situation changed with increasing knowledge about carbohydrates, glycoconjugates, and carbohydrate-modifying enzymes together with the key roles they play in biological processes such as recognition, signal transduction, and immune responses. An outcome of research activities in glycoscience, which, at the same time, is of great general interest, is the development of several new pharmaceuticals against serious diseases such as malaria, cancer, and various storage diseases.

This volume provides an insight into the future strategies for commercial biocatalysis with a focus on sustainable technologies, together with chemoenzymatic and biotechnological approaches to synthesize various types of approved and new active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) via proven and latest synthetic routes using single-step biocatalytic or enzyme cascade reactions. Many of these drugs act as enzyme inhibitors, as discussed in a chapter with a variety of examples. The targeted enzymes are involved in diseases such as different cancers, metastatic and infectious diseases, osteoporosis, and cardiovascular disorders. The biocatalysts employed for API synthesis include hydrolytic enzymes, alcohol dehydrogenases, laccases, imine reductases, reductive aminases, peroxygenases, cytochrome P450 enzymes, polyketide synthases, transaminases, and halogenases. Many of them have been improved with respect to their properties by engineering methods. The book discusses the syntheses of drugs, including alkaloids and antibiotics, non-ribosomal peptides, antimalarial and antidiabetic drugs, prenylated xanthones, antioxidants, and many important (chiral) intermediates required for the synthesis of pharmaceuticals.

The book covers the fundamentals of the field of biocatalysis that are not treated in such detail (or even not at all) in existing biocatalysis books or biochemistry textbooks. It of course does not substitute existing biochemistry textbooks but will serve a suitable supplement as it discusses biochemical fundamentals in connection with the respective topics. With focus on the interdisciplinary nature of biocatalysis, the book contains many aspects of fundamental organic chemistry and some of inorganic chemistry as well, which should make it interesting not only for biochemistry but also for chemistry students. An important theme being emphasized in the book is that applied biocatalysis is one of the main prerequisites for a sustainable development. The topics covered ranges from basic enzyme chemistry (biosynthesis, structure, properties, interaction forces, kinetics) to a detailed description of catalytic mechanisms. It covers the fundamentals of the different enzyme classes together with their applications in native and in immobilized state or in the form of whole cells in aqueous as well as non-conventional media. Topics such as catalytic antibodies, nucleic acid catalysts, non-ribosomal peptide synthesis, evolutionary methods, and the design of cells are also included.

The book covers the fundamentals of the field of biocatalysis that are not treated in such detail (or even not at all) in existing biocatalysis books or biochemistry textbooks. It of course does not substitute existing biochemistry textbooks but will serve a suitable supplement as it discusses biochemical fundamentals in connection with the respective topics. With focus on the interdisciplinary nature of biocatalysis, the book contains many aspects of fundamental organic chemistry and some of inorganic chemistry as well, which should make it interesting not only for biochemistry but also for chemistry students. An important theme being emphasized in the book is that applied biocatalysis is one of the main prerequisites for a sustainable development. The topics covered ranges from basic enzyme chemistry (biosynthesis, structure, properties, interaction forces, kinetics) to a detailed description of catalytic mechanisms. It covers the fundamentals of the different enzyme classes together with their applications in native and in immobilized state or in the form of whole cells in aqueous as well as non-conventional media. Topics such as catalytic antibodies, nucleic acid catalysts, non-ribosomal peptide synthesis, evolutionary methods, and the design of cells are also included.

Nanobiocatalysis has rapidly developed into a subarea of enzyme biotechnology. It combines the advances in nanotechnology that have generated nanoscale materials of different sizes, shapes, and physicochemical properties, and the excellent characteristics of biocatalysts into an innovative technology. This book provides an overview of the various relations between nanotechnology and biocatalysis. It discusses the fabrication and application of nanomaterials for the immobilization of enzymes used in the sustainable production of goods and chemicals. Nanosupports have several advantages compared with bulk solid materials because of their high surface area, which results in a significantly reduced mass transfer limitation and comparatively high enzyme loading. These characteristics are also of great use for applications in the fields of enzymatic biosensors, biofuel cells, bioelectronics, and photoelectrochemical analyte detection, where conductive nanomaterials improve the rate of electron transfer. The book also presents an overview of nanotoxicology and covers nanostructured enzyme catalysis in organic solvents and its potential application for biodiesel production, probing of enzymatic activity, and identification of enzyme functions of inorganic nanoparticles as enzyme mimics.

In this Completely Revised and Extended Edition with a significantly enhanced content, all Chapters have been updated considering relevant literature and recent developments until 2016 together with application oriented examples with a focus on Industrial Biocatalysis. Newly treated topics comprise among others systems metabolic engineering approaches, metagenome screening, new tools for pathway engineering, and de-novo computational design as actual research areas in biocatalysis. Information about different aspects of RNA technologies, and completely new Chapters on 'Fluorescent Proteins' and 'Biocatalysis and Nanotechnology' are also included.

This book provides an actual overview of the structure, function, and application of carbohydrate-modifying biocatalysts. Carbohydrates have been disregarded for a long time by the scientific community, mainly due to their complex structure. Meanwhile, the situation changed with increasing knowledge about the key role carbohydrates play in biological processes such as recognition, signal transduction, immune responses, and others. An outcome of research activities in glycoscience is the development of several new pharmaceuticals against serious diseases such as malaria, cancer, and various storage diseases. Furthermore, the employment of carbohydrate-modifying biocatalysts-enzymes as well as microorganisms-will contribute significantly to the development of environmentally friendly processes boosting a shift of the chemical industry from petroleum- to bio-based production of chemicals from renewable resources. The updated content of the second edition of this book has been extended by discussing the current state of the art of using recombinantly expressed carbohydrate-modifying biocatalysts and the synthesis of minicellulosomes in connection with consolidated bioprocessing of lignocellulosic material. Furthermore, a synthetic biology approach for using DAHP-dependent aldolases to catalyze asymmetric aldol reactions is presented.

Biocatalysis has become an essential tool in the chemical industry and is the core of industrial biotechnology, also known as white biotechnology, making use of biocatalysts in terms of enzymes or whole cells in chemical processes as an alternative to chemical catalysts. This shift can be seen in the many areas of daily life where biocatalysts-with their environmentally friendly properties-are currently employed. Drivers are the big societal challenges resulting from concerns about the global climate change and the need for an assured energy supply. Modern biocatalysis relies to a large extent on the tremendous advances in the so-called omics techniques and the structural elucidation of biomolecules, which have led to synthetic biology and metabolic engineering as new research fields with high application potential for the rational design of enzymes and microbial production strains. In this book, renowned scientists discuss the actual developments in these research fields together with a variety of application-oriented topics.