Lyophilized Rhodotorula yeast as all-in-one redox biocatalyst: Access to enantiopure building blocks by simple chemoenzymatic one-pot procedures

•Rhodotorula sp. LSL reduces prochiral arylketones with Prelog stereoselectivity.•Optimized lyophilized biocatalyst was used at extreme basic pH.•One-pot procedures were developed to access to enantiopure building blocks.•Halohydrins, oxiranes and diols were chemodivergently prepared from α-haloarylketones.

Rhodotorula sp. LSL, isolated from a local landfarming was able to catalyze the reduction of prochiral arylketones into sec-alcohols with excellent Prelog stereoselectivity (ee > 99%). The use of resting and lyophilized cells was optimized accessing to an easy-to-use whole cell biocatalyst that efficiently works even under non-sterile conditions, without the addition of external cofactors and using plain water as solvent. The catalyst resistance in alkaline media enabled (chemo)enzymatic one-pot procedures at high pH values. So a simple and efficient methodology was applied to prepare alternatively enantiopure β-halohydrins, terminal diols and epoxides from aromatic α-haloketones.

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