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MITSUKURA Koichi
Title

Associate Professor
Department Department of Chemistry and Biomolecular Science
Course Biomolecular Science Course

Research fields

My research is divided into three major groups as shown below.

1) Screening and characterization of novel enzymes
2) Function modification of enzyme
3) Synthesis of useful compounds (materials for the synthesis of pharmaceutical, agrochemical and functional polymer) by green bioprocess

　Recently, we have been focusing on enzymatic synthesis of chiral cyclic amine because chiral cyclic amine is a very promising compound as synthetic intermediate of pharmaceutical. Imine-reducing enzymes have been reported as metabolic enzymes involving in amino acid biosynthesis. However, imine reductase acting on cyclic imine without carboxyl group was undiscovered at that time. We therefore have surveyed imine reductase. By enzyme screening using water-stable cyclic imine, we have found novel (R)-and (S)-imine reductases from Streptomyces strains, respectively (Fig. 1). Then both enantioselective imine reductases were purified and characterized. After preparation of recombinant cells, we achieved synthesis of chiral cyclic amines under the optimized reaction conditions. Moreover, we also approach basic study on development in the production of useful compounds other than chiral amine.

Fig. 1 Synthesis of chiral cyclic amines by enantioselective imine reductases

Research Overview

Research Keywords

Biocatalyst

Enzyme screening

Bioconversion

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