A chemoenzymatic process for amide bond formation by an adenylating enzyme-mediated mechanism

Amide bond formation serves as a fundamental reaction in chemistry, and is practically useful for the synthesis of peptides, food additives, and polymers. However, current methods for amide bond formation essentially generate wastes and suffer from poor atom economy under harsh conditions. To solve these issues, we demonstrated an alternative synthesis method for diverse tryptophyl-N-alkylamides by the combination of the first adenylation domain of tyrocidine synthetase 1 with primary or secondary amines as nucleophiles. Moreover, the physiological role of this domain is l-phenylalanine adenylation; however, we revealed that it displayed broad substrate flexibility from mono-substituted tryptophan analogues to even d-tryptophan. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first evidence for an adenylating enzyme-mediated direct amide bond formation via a sequential enzymatic activation of amino acids followed by nucleophilic substitution by general amines. These findings facilitate the design of a promising tool for biocatalytic straightforward amide bond formation with less side products.