Biological production of commercially relevant fluorinated organic compounds

This project has as main objective the biological production of commercially important fluoroaromatic compounds using fluoroaromatic degrading microorganisms, previously isolated and characterised.
Fluoroaromatics constitute a relatively recent group of chemical specialties with significant and increasing commercial interest due to several uses. Fluorinated molecules are used in an increasing number of pharmaceuticals - fluorocatechol is a valuable precursor for the synthesis of pharmaceuticals such as adrenergic catecholamines and biogenic amines; examples of other fluorinated building blocks are fluorocinnamic acid and chlorofluoroanilines; fluorinated solvents are also finding increasing use; an example is trifluoroacetic acid and fluorobenzene.
Biocatalytic conversion of fluoroaromatic compounds constitutes a good alternative to obviate many of the disadvantages associated to the production of these compounds, in that it constitutes a cleaner process by the employment of microorganims capable of biotransforming fluoroaromatics into new fluorinated compounds, with reduced generation of toxic compounds and with higher conversion selectivity.
At ESB, the metabolic pathway of several fluoroaromatic compounds have been studied and some fluorinated intermediates have been identified. For example, the intermediates 4-fluoro-cis-benzenedihydrodiol, 4-fluorocatechol and 3-fluoro-cis,cis-muconate were shown to be implicated in the metabolism of fluorobenzene. 4-fluorocatechol is an important fluorinated compound for the pharmaceutical industry and its production constitutes one of the main objectives of this project.