LAUSR

Fatty epoxides are unique building blocks in organic transformations and materials production, however, their synthetic methodologies are currently not accessible from renewable fatty acids. Herein we demonstrate a photoenzymatic decarboxylation of epoxy fatty acids into fatty epoxides using fatty acid photodecarboxylase (FAP) from Chlorella variabilis NC64A (CvFAP). Various fatty epoxides were synthesized in excellent selectivity by wild-type CvFAP. The decarboxylation reaction was also achieved with four new FAP homologs, suggesting potentially a broad availability of the biocatalysts for this challenging decarboxylation reaction. By combining CvFAP with lipase and peroxygenase, a multienzymatic cascade to transform oleic acid and its triglyceride into the corresponding fatty epoxides was established. The obtained fatty epoxides were further converted into rather unusual fatty compounds including diol, alcohol, ether and chain-shortened carboxylic acids. The present photobiocatalytic synthesis of fatty epoxides from natural starting materials excels by its intrinsic selectivity, mild condition, and independence of nicotinamide cofactors.