A chemoenzymatic route to synthesize unnatural sugar nucleotides using a novel N-acetylglucosamine-1-phosphate pyrophosphorylase from Camphylobacter jejuni NCTC 11168

A novel N-acetylglucosamine-1-phosphate pyrophosphorylase was identified from Campylobacter jejuni NCTC 11168. An unprecedented degree of substrate promiscuity has been revealed by systematic studies on its substrate specificities towards sugar-1-P and NTP. The yields of the synthetic reaction of seven kinds of sugar nucleotides catalyzed by the enzyme were up to 60%. In addition, the yields of the other nine were around 20%. With this enzyme, three novel sugar nucleotide analogs were synthesized on a preparative scale and well characterized.