a well-known example of natural self-defence system consisting of an inactive substrate (alliin) and enzyme (alliinase) which, when combined, produce highly antimicrobial allicin. Increase of alliinase stability and its activity are of paramount importance in various applications relying on its use for in-situ synthesis of allicin or its analogues, e.g., pulmonary drug delivery, treatment of superficial
S-Substituted-l-cysteine sulfoxides are valuable compounds that are contained in plants. Particularly, (+)-alliin and its degraded products have gained significant attention because of their human health benefits. However, (+)-alliin production has been limited to extraction from plants and chemical synthesis; both methods have drawbacks in terms of stability and safety. Here, we proposed the enzymatic
Asymmetric sulfoxidation of sulfur-containing L-amino acids was successfully achieved through bioconversion using IDO, which is an Fe(II)/alpha-ketoglutarate-dependent dioxygenase previously found in Bacillus thuringiensis strain 2e2. The IDO catalyzed sulfoxidation of L-methionine, L-ethionine, S-methyl-L-cysteine, S-ethyl-L-cysteine, and S-allyl-L-cysteine into the corresponding (S)-configured sulfoxides such as (+)-methiin and (+)-alliin, which are responsible for valuable physiological activities in mammals, and have high stereoselectivity. Herein we have established an effective preparative laboratory scale production method to obtain enantiomerically pure chiral sulfoxides using an IDO biocatalyst. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.