LAUSR

Sustainable synthesis of valuable noncanonical amino acids from renewable feedstocks is of great importance. Here, a feasible chemo-enzymatic procedure was developed for the synthesis of chiral β-(2-furyl)serine from biomass catalyzed by a solid acid catalyst and immobilized E. coli whole-cell harboring l-threonine aldolase. A novel magnetic solid acid catalyst Fe3O4@MCM-41/SO42- was successfully synthesized for conversion of corncob into furfural in an aqueous system. Under the optimum conditions, furfural yield of 63.6% was achieved in 40 min at 180 ℃ with 2.0% catalyst (w/w). Furthermore, biomass-derived furfural was converted into an aldol-addition product β-(2-furyl)serine with 73.6% yield, 99% ee and 20% de by immobilized cells in 6 h. The magnetic solid acid and biocatalyst can be readily recovered and efficiently reused for five consecutive cycles without significant loss on product yields. This chemo-enzymatic route can be attractive for producing noncanonical amino acids from biomass.