Future of Combinatorial biocatalysis in a drug discovery

The published applications of combinatorial biocatalysis have continued to expand at a growing rate. This is exemplified by the variety of enzyme catalysts and whole-cell catalysts used for the creation of libraries through a wide range of biocatalytic reactions, including acylation, glycosylation, halogenation, oxidation and reduction. These biocatalytic methods add the capability to perform unique chemistries or selective reactions with complex or labile reagents when integrated with classical combinatorial synthesis methods. Thus, applications towards the production of libraries de novo, the expansion of chemically derived combinatorial libraries, and the generation of novel combinatorial reagents for library synthesis can be achieved. Theoretically, these results illustrate what is already evident from nature: that complex, biologically active, structurally diverse compound libraries can be generated through the application of biocatalysis alone or in combination with classical organic synthesis approaches.