Microbial epoxide hydrolases for preparative biotransformations

Epoxide hydrolases from microbial sources are highly versatile biocatalysts for the asymmetric hydrolysis of epoxides on a preparative scale. Besides kinetic resolution, which furnishes the corresponding vicinal diol and rema ining non-hydrolysed epoxide in nonracemic form, enantioconvergent processe s are possible: these are highly attractive as they lead to the formation o f a single enantiomeric diol from a racemic oxirane. The data accumulated o ver recent years reveal a common picture of the substrate structure selecti vity pattern of microbial epoxide hydrolases and indicate that substrates o f various structural types can be selectively hydrolysed with enzymes from certain microbial sources.