Work

Harnessing natural product assembly lines: structure, promiscuity, and engineering

Year: 2015

Type: review

Abstract: Many therapeutically relevant natural products are biosynthesized by the action of giant mega-enzyme assembly lines. By leveraging the specificity, promiscuity, and modularity of assembly lines, a variety of strategies has been developed that enables the biosynthesis of modified natural products. This review briefly summarizes recent structural advances related to natural product assembly lines, discusses chemical approaches to probing assembly line structures in the absence of traditional biophysical data, and surveys efforts that harness the inherent or engineered promiscuity of assembly lines for the synthesis of non-natural polyketides and non-ribosomal peptide analogues.

Source: Journal of Industrial Microbiology & Biotechnology

DOI: 10.1007/s10295-015-1704-8

Authors: Christopher C Ladner, Gavin J Williams

Institution: North Carolina State University

Language: English

Topic: Microbial Natural Products and Biosynthesis

Subfield: Pharmacology

Field: Medicine

Domain: Health Sciences

Open Access status: green

Funders: National Science Foundation, National Institute of General Medical Sciences

Award: Synthetic Biology Approach to Regioselectively Modified Polyketides