Patent ID: 7960155

Claim:
A process for the microbiological oxidation of a substrate compound having an N-, O- or S-heterocyclic mono- or polynuclear aromatic moiety, which process comprises oxidizing at least one aromatic C—H group of the heterocyclic aromatic moiety by a1) culturing a recombinant microorganism which expresses a cytochrome P450 monooxygenase of bacterial origin in a culture medium, in the presence of an exogenous or intermediately formed substrate; or a2) incubating a substrate-containing reaction medium with a cytochrome P450 monooxygenase of bacterial origin; and b) isolating the oxidation product formed or a secondary product thereof from the medium, and wherein the monooxygenase is derived from cytochrome P450 monooxygenase BM-3 from Bacillus megaterium having the amino acid sequence according to SEQ ID NO:2 by a mutation, and the mutation consists of a functional mutation in one, two or all of sequence positions 74, 87 and 188, whereby Phe87 is replaced by Ala, Val or Leu, Leu188 is replaced by Asn or Gln, and/or Ala74 is replaced by Val or Gly.