Interfacing Microbial Styrene Production with a Biocompatible Cyclopropanation Reaction

Iron(III) phthalocyanine has been identified as a highly active and biocompatible carbene-transfer catalyst capable of cyclopropanating styrene generated by engineered E. coli metabolism. The biocompatible reaction is non-toxic to the producing organism and performs alongside cellular styrene output, enabling the near-quantitative production of various phenyl cyclopropanes directly from D-glucose in single vessel fermentations.