Novel Insights into the Combination of Metal- and Biocatalysis: Cascade One-Pot Synthesis of Enantiomerically Pure Biaryl Alcohols in Deep Eutectic Solvents

One of the pioneering examples of chemoenzymatic cascades in water such as the palladium-catalysed Suzuki-cross coupling followed by an enzymatic reduction has been revisited by the employment of a medium containing Deep Eutectic Solvents (DESs) for the catalytic performance. Thus, the unique properties of these neoteric solvents enabled to reach high substrate concentration for the overall process. Moreover, both isolated enzymes and whole cells exhibited excellent activities which allowed to obtain a set of chiral biaryl alcohols in good yields and very high enantiomeric excess (> 99%).