Chemoenzymatic preparation of optically active secondary amines: a new efficient route to enantiomerically pure indolines

Abstract

An efficient chemoenzymatic route for the synthesis of optically active substituted indolines has been developed. Different lipases have been tested in the alkoxycarbonylation of these secondary amines, Candida antarctica lipase A (CAL-A) was found to be the best biocatalyst for 2-substituted-indolines, and C. antarctica lipase B (CAL-B) for 3-methylindoline. The combination of lipases with a variety of allyl carbonates and tert-butyl methyl ether (TBME) as solvent has allowed the isolation of the carbamate and amine derivatives with a high level of enantiopurity