Bioproduction of ribavirin by green microbial biotransformation.

Ribavirin is an antiviral compound widely used in Hepatitis C Virus therapy. Biotransformation of this nucleoside analogue using Escherichia coli ATCC 12407 as biocatalyst is herein reported. Reaction parameters such as microorganism amounts, substrate ratio and temperature were optimized reaching conversion yields of 86%. Biocatalyst stability was enhanced by immobilization in agarose matrix. This immobilized biocatalyst was able to be reused for more than 270 h and could be stored during more than 4 months without activity loss. Batch and packed-bed reactors based on a stabilized biocatalyst were assayed for bioprocess scale-up. A continuous sustainable bioprocess was evaluated using a prototype packed-bed reactor, which allowed to produce 95 mg of ribavirin. Finally, in this work an efficient green bioprocess for ribavirin bioproduction using a stabilized biocatalyst was developed.