Development of an immobilized biocatalyst based on Bacillus psychrosaccharolyticus NDT for the preparative synthesis of trifluridine and decytabine

•The optimization of BpNDT immobilization is here reported.•Crosslinking of enzyme adsorbed to functionalized supports increased its stability.•Addition of 20% glycerol to the immobilization medium improved final activity.•Selected BpNDT biocatalyst was stable in presence of 20% DMF or high pH.•Immobilized BpNDT was used to synthesize decytabine and trifluridine.

The immobilization of Bacillus psychrosaccharolyticus nucleoside 2′-deoxyribosyltransferase was deeply investigated and finally optimized. The best immobilization procedure resulted to be ionic adsorption on PEI 600 Da agarose followed by crosslinking with 70% oxidized dextran (20 kDa). The percentage of recovered activity was further improved (from 21% to 33%) by the addition of 20% glycerol to the immobilization mixture. The resulting biocatalyst showed a stability profile similar to that of the soluble enzyme and it was used for the preparative synthesis of trifluridine and decytabine obtaining conversions ranging from 50% to 76%.

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