Project

The goal of the project is the synthesis, characterisation and application of an artificial copper-based metalloenzyme to catalyze asymmetric allylic substitution reactions¹. The basis of this research is the reaction explored by Mejía et al.^{2, 3} in which they described the allylic substitution via a copper-terpyridine complex using either thermal or light activation. Unfortunately, efforts to make this reaction asymmetric were not successful. However, artificial metalloenzymes offer the unique ability to induce enantiomeric information into our desired product. Therefore, we sought out to design a de novo artificial metalloenzyme to suit our reaction. To achieve this, we cooperate closely with Henrik Terholsen (Group of Prof. Bornscheuer) and Maria Logotheti (Group of Dr. Höhne) in Greifswald. Their focus is on the design, modification, and expression of promising protein scaffolds while the focus in LIKAT lies on the modification of the catalytic system to work together with the protein and tolerate the necessary conditions set by the scaffold.

1. P. Hünemörder and E. Mejía, Catal. Sci. Technol. 2020, 10, 6754-6768.
2. A. A. Almasalma and E. Mejía, Synthesis, 2019, 51, A-H.
3. A. A. Almasalma and E. Mejía, Chem. Eur. J., 2018, 24, 12269-12273.