The amide functional group is ubiquitous in nature and one of the most important motifs in pharmaceuticals, agrochemicals, and other valuable products. While coupling amides and carboxylic acids is a trivial synthetic transformation, it often requires protective group manipulation, along with stoichiometric quantities of expensive and deleterious coupling reagents. Nature has evolved a range of enzymes to construct amide bonds, the vast majority of which utilize adenosine triphosphate to activate the carboxylic acid substrate for amine coupling. Despite the fact that these enzymes operate under mild conditions, as well as possessing chemoselectivity and regioselectivity that obviates the need for protecting groups, their synthetic potential has been largely unexplored. In this review, we discuss recent research into the discovery, characterization, and development of amide bond forming enzymes, with an emphasis on stand-alone ligase enzymes that can generate amides directly from simple carboxylic acid and amine substrates.

中文翻译：

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利用和工程化形成酰胺键的连接酶可合成酰胺。

酰胺官能团在自然界中无处不在，并且是药物，农用化学品和其他有价值产品中最重要的基序之一。尽管酰胺和羧酸的偶联是很简单的合成转化，但是它通常需要保护基团以及化学计量的昂贵和有害的偶联试剂。大自然已经进化出多种酶来构建酰胺键，其中绝大多数利用三磷酸腺苷来活化用于胺偶联的羧酸底物。尽管这些酶在温和的条件下起作用，并且具有化学选择性和区域选择性，从而消除了对保护基的需要，但是它们的合成潜力尚未得到充分开发。在这篇评论中，我们讨论了有关发现，表征，