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Biocatalysts for cascade reaction: porcine pancreas lipase (PPL)-catalyzed synthesis of bis(indolyl)alkanes

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Abstract

A cascade reaction between aldehydes and indole catalyzed by lipase from porcine pancreas Type II (PPL) in solvent mixture at 50 °C was reported for the first time. Some control experiments had been designed to demonstrate that the PPL was responsible for the cascade reaction. After the optimization of the stepwise process, a series of bis(indolyl)alkanes were prepared in moderate to excellent yields under the catalysis of PPL.

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Acknowledgments

The authors gratefully acknowledge generous financial support from National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 21072172, 21272208) and the Zhejiang Provincial Natural Science Foundation (Project No. 2010-Z4090225).

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We declare that we have no competing financial interests.

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  1. Department of Chemistry, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310027, People’s Republic of China

    Ziwei Xiang, Zhiqiang Liu, Xiang Chen, Qi Wu & XianFu Lin

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  1. Ziwei Xiang
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  2. Zhiqiang Liu
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  3. Xiang Chen
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Correspondence to Qi Wu or XianFu Lin.

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Xiang, Z., Liu, Z., Chen, X. et al. Biocatalysts for cascade reaction: porcine pancreas lipase (PPL)-catalyzed synthesis of bis(indolyl)alkanes. Amino Acids 45, 937–945 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00726-013-1547-4

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