Simultaneous Preparation of (S)-2-Aminobutane and d-Alanine or d-Homoalanine via Biocatalytic Transamination at High Substrate Concentration

(S)-2-Aminobutane, d-alanine, and d-homoalanine are important intermediates for the production of various active pharmaceutical ingredients and food additives. The preparation of these small chiral amine or amino acids with high water solubility still demands searching for efficient methods. In this work, we identified an ω-transaminase (ω-TA) from Sinirhodobacter hungdaonensis (ShdTA) that catalyzed the kinetic resolution of racemic 2-aminobutane at a concentration of 800 mM using pyruvate as the amino acceptor, leading to the simultaneous isolation of enantiopure (S)-2-aminobutane and d-alanine in 46% and 90% yield, respectively. In addition, (S)-2-aminobutane (98% ee) and d-homoalanine (99% ee) were isolated in 45% and 93% yield, respectively, in the kinetic resolution of racemic 2-aminobutane at a concentration of 400 mM coupled with deamination of l-threonine by threonine deaminase. We thus developed a biocatalytic process for the practical synthesis of these valuable small chiral amine and d-amino acids.