The search for novel reaction media with environmental friendly properties is an area of great interest in enzyme catalysis. Water is the medium of biocatalysed processes, but due to its properties, sometimes the presence of organic (co)solvents is required. Cyrene(TM) represents one of the newest approaches to this medium engineering. This polar solvent has been employed for the first time in biocatalysed reductions employing purified alcohol dehydrogenases. A set of alpha-ketoesters has been reduced to the corresponding chiral alpha-hydroxyesters with high conversions and optical purities, being possible to obtain good results at Cyrene contents of 30 v/v and working at substrate concentrations of 1.0 M in presence of 2.5 v/v of this solvent. At this concentration, the presence of Cyrene has a beneficial effect in the bioreduction conversion.
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