Abstract: Photobiocatalysis is emerging rapidly as an interdisciplinary technology. It combines the advantages of photocatalysis and biocatalysis, and exerts huge potentials in biosynthesis. Through natural biomimetic design, the photobiocatalytic approach can offer alternatives to conventional chemical synthesis and integrate multiple factors involved in the formation and transfer efficiency of functional groups, atom economy and environmental factors. As such, the photobiocatalysis can be used to expand the reaction horizons, a major limitation of natural enzymes. It is of great significance to establish new synthetic pathways with high efficiency and low consumption. In recent years, the photobiocatalysis has been sucessfully used to catalyze organic reactions including carbon-carbon, carbon-oxygen, carbon-nitrogen, carbon-halogen bond formation, etc. It has shown unique merits in catalytic activity, atom economy, selectivity and expansion of substrate scopes. This review focuses on the present advances of photobiocatalysis in organic synthesis, and analyzes the potentials of its application as well as the technical bottlenecks to be addressed. We also expect to provide references for further development of green chemical synthesis technology via the use of photobiocatalysis.

Key words: photobiocatalysis, artificial design, biocatalysis, photocatalysis, biosynthesis