Preparation of optically active beta-amino acids from microbial polyester polyhydroxyalkanoates

Abstract

An efficient method for the preparation of optically active ethyl P-aminobutyrate from the biopolymer, poly-(R)-(-)3-hydroxybutyrate (PHB) obtained from bacterial cells has been established using chemical transformations: simple recovery of PHB from bacterial cells followed by acidic alcoholysis, tosylation, nucleophilic substitution by azide, and an indium mediated reduction.