Photoenzymatic Hydrosulfonylation for the Stereoselective Synthesis of Chiral Sulfones
Xiaoyang Chen, Dannan Zheng, Linye Jiang, Zhiguo Wang, Xinyu Duan, Dong Cui, Shuang Liu, Yuan Zhang, Xiaomin Yu, Jingyan Ge, Jian Xu
Abstract
Chiral sulfones are recurrent motifs in pharmaceuticals and bioactive molecules. Although chemical methods have been developed to afford α- or β- chiral sulfones, these protocols rely heavily on the pre-synthesis of structurally complicated starting materials and chiral metal complexes. Herein, we described a photoenzymatic approach for the radical-mediated stereoselective hydrosulfonylation. Engineered variants of ene reductases provide efficient biocatalysts for this transformation, enabling to achieve a series of β-chiral sulfonyl compounds with high yields (up to 92 %) and excellent e.r. values (up to 99 : 1).