Transphosphatidylation of phospholipids in presence of ionic liquids

Natural and synthetic phospholipids (PLs) have attracted considerable interest for the multiple scientific and practical applications which follow from their amphiphilic properties. PLs are the focus of biomedical research because of their possible use as pharmaceuticals, food additives, cosmetics, in liposome technology, in gene transfer therapy and in drug delivery systems. However, the investigations and applications rely upon the availability of a great number of purified PLs which can be obtained by semisynthesis from natural sources or from synthetic precursors. The aim of this work is to investigate innovative reaction media such as ionic liquids (ILs) for enzymatic PLs transformations in order to obtain a higher selectivity in the enzymatic transphosphatidylation reactions of natural phosphatidylcholine catalyzed by phospholipase D (PLD) from Streptomyces PMF. We have tested the stability and the activity of this PLD in various commercial ILs. We illustrate the encouraging preliminary results of the use of ILs as co-solvents in transesterification reactions with different alcohols. The presence of ILs seems to drive the reaction towards transphosphatidylation with high depression of competitive hydrolysis. We believe that the results here illustrated can stimulate further study on PLs biotransformations in ILs.