Abstract:
Epoxides can be hydrolyzed by fungi to produce chiral diols. The first part of this thesis presents
an investigation of the microbial hydrolysis of aziridines comparable in structure to epoxide
biotransformation substrates. Biotransformation of the aziridines 1 -methyl-2-phenyl aziridine, 2-
phenylaziridine and N-methyl-7-aza bicyclo[4.1.0] heptane was studied using Beauveria
sulfurescens, Aspergillus niger and Diplodia gossypina but no evidence for enzymic hydrolysis
was obtained.
The hydroxylation reaction performed by the fungus Beauveria sulfurescens ATCC 7159 has been
studied for many years and several models describing the hydroxylating pattern exhibited by this
fungus have been proposed. The second part of this thesis presents a test of the proposed models.
The ability of Beauveria sulfurescens to hydroxylate thirty potential substrates was examined, and
the data suggest that none of the earlier proposed models accounts for all of the bioconversion
results. A possible explanation is proposed, suggesting that there is more than one enzyme
responsible for the hydroxylation reactions performed by Beauveria sulfurescens.
