industrial biocatalysis and enable the preparation of optically pure amines. For these transformations they require either an amine donor (amination of ketones) or an amine acceptor (deamination of racemic amines). Herein transaminases are shown to react with aromatic β‐fluoroamines, thus leading to simultaneous enantioselective dehalogenation and deamination to form the corresponding acetophenone
The synthesis of chiral amines is of central importance to pharmaceutical chemistry, and the inclusion of fluorine atoms in drug molecules can both increase potency and slow metabolism. Optically enriched β‐fluoroamines can be obtained by the kinetic resolution of racemic amines using amine transaminases (ATAs), but yields are limited to 50 %, and also secondary amines are not accessible. In order
inversion protocol starting with enantioenriched 1-aryl-2-fluoroethanols using phthalimide as nucleophile was employed in the synthesis of the (S)-1-aryl-2-fluoroethylamines. Both the inversion efficiency and yield depended on the aromatic substituents. For six of the substrates, clean inversion of the stereochemistry was observed. However, racemisation and low yields were the result when electron-donating