Confining Enzyme Clusters in Bacteriophage P22 Enhances Cofactor Recycling and Stereoselectivity for Chiral Alcohol Synthesis

Cofactor recycling is important in the synthesis of chiral alcohols via bioreduction of ketones. Herein, a carbonyl reductase from Scheffersomyces stipitis (SsCR) and a glucose dehydrogenase from Bacillus megaterium (BmGDH) were confined in bacteriophage P22 nanoparticles. The recycling efficiency of nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate (NADPH) in these nanoparticles was enhanced by a factor of from 3 to 45 compared with the free enzyme system, which is attributed to the higher local concentrations of NADPH resulting from the confinement of the enzymes in the P22 nanoparticles. The consumption of NADPH can be reduced by an order of magnitude in scale-up synthesis compared with a free enzyme system.