Biocatalysis for desymmetrization and resolution of stereocenters beyond the reactive center: How far is far enough?

The kinetic resolution of racemates and desymmetrization are the most common approaches to the preparation of enantiomerically enriched compounds. These procedures allow the access of high valuable, chiral building blocks for many purposes in academic or industrial R&D endeavors. Nevertheless, the scope of stereochemistry recognition in biotransformations usually occurs at the site of the transformation or when it is close to it (not more than 3 bonds). However, there are a growing number of enzymatic transformations which surpass the limits of stereorecognition of remote chiral (or prochiral) centers. In this account, we would like to present some aspects of biocatalyzed remote resolutions and remote desymmetrizations to call attention for these challenging transformations.