Electro‐Enzymatic and Electro‐Microbial Stereospecific Reductions

The hydrogenation of prochiral α,β‐unsaturated carboxylates and aldehydes to chiral compounds can be accomplished electrochemically, both with isolated enoate reductase as well as with whole bacteria cells which contain this enzyme; methylviologen functions as electron‐transfer agent. Since NAD+ can also be reduced to NADH, in principle all substrates of NAD‐dependent enzymes can be stereospecifically hydrogenated with this method.