Discovery and Biosynthetic Investigation of a New Antibacterial Dehydrated Non‐Ribosomal Tripeptide
Year: 2020
Type: article
Abstract: Dehydroalanine (Dha) and dehydrobutyrine (Dhb) display considerable flexibility in a variety of chemical and biological reactions. Natural products containing Dha and/or Dhb residues are often found to display diverse biological activities. While the (Z) geometry is predominant in nature, only a handful of metabolites containing (E)-Dhb have been found thus far. Here we report discovery of a new antimicrobial peptide, albopeptide, through NMR analysis and chemical synthesis, which contains two contiguous unsaturated residues, Dha-(E)-Dhb. It displays narrow-spectrum activity against vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus faecium. In-vitro biochemical assays show that albopeptide originates from a noncanonical NRPS pathway featuring dehydration processes and catalysed by unusual condensation domains. Finally, we provide evidence of the occurrence of a previously untapped group of short unsaturated peptides in the bacterial kingdom, suggesting an important biological function in bacteria.
Language: English
Subfield: Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology
Field: Immunology and Microbiology
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
Funders: Royal Society, Scottish Funding Council, University of Aberdeen, National Natural Science Foundation of China, Government of Jiangsu Province, Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province, Directorate for Biological Sciences, Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Marine Biotechnology, Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council
OpenAlex ID: W3094053963