Engineering of a Novel, Magnetic, Bi-Functional, Enzymatic Nanobiocatalyst for the Highly Efficient Synthesis of Enantiopure (R)-3-quinuclidinol

Ni2+-NTA-boosted magnetic porous silica nanoparticles (Ni@MSN) to serve as ideal support for bi-functional enzyme were fabricated for the first time. The versatility of this support was validated by one-step purification and immobilization of bi-functional enzyme MLG consisting of 3-Quinuclidinone reductase and glucose dehydrogenase, which can simultaneously catalyze both carbonyl reduction and cofactor regeneration, to fabricate an artificial bi-functional nanobiocatalyst (namely, MLG-Ni@MSN). The enzyme loading of 71.7 mg/g support and 92.7% immobilization efficiency were obtained. Moreover, the immobilized MLG showed wider pH and temperature tolerance and greater storage stability than free MLG under the same conditions. The nanosystem was employed as biocatalyst to accomplish the 3-quinuclidinone (70 g/L) to (R)-3-quinuclidinol biotransformation in 100% conversion yield with >99% selectivity within 6 h and simultaneous cofactor regeneration. Furthermore, the immobilized MLG retained up to 80.3% (carbonyl reduction) and 78.0% (cofactor regeneration) of the initial activity after being recycled eight times. In addition, the MLG-Ni@MSN system exhibited almost no enzyme leaching during biotransformation and recycling. Therefore, we have reason to believe that the Ni@MSN support gave great promise for constructing a new biocatalytic nanosystem with multifunctional enzymes to achieve some other complex bioconversions.