Novel artificial metalloenzymes by in vivo incorporation of metal-binding unnatural amino acids

Artificial metalloenzymes have emerged as an attractive new approach to enantioselective catalysis. Herein, we introduce a novel strategy for preparation of artificial metalloenzymes utilizing amber stop codon suppression methodology for the in vivo incorporation of metal-binding unnatural amino acids. The resulting artificial metalloenzymes were applied in catalytic asymmetric Friedel-Crafts alkylation reactions and up to 83% ee for the product was achieved.