Biocatalysis breakthrough enables synthesis of lactam building blocks for drugs
Enzymatic cyclisation of oxazolone reagents offers a cheap and simple route to important antibiotic precursor
The first biocatalytic route to produce a broad range of lactams – highly sought-after building blocks for drugs, including penicillin antibiotics – has been discovered. The work, which created an enzyme from an iron-containing muscle protein to catalyse lactam synthesis, could offer a simpler, cheaper and more efficient way to make them.
Lactams are ring-shaped amides, derived from amino alkanoic acids, that come in different forms depending on the number of atoms in their rings. Although a few organic synthesis strategies to make lactams already exist, a route via direct C–H amidation, which functionalises unreactive C–H bonds, could offer a more convenient and efficient alternative.