China-US joint study makes breakthrough on polyketide
DATE:2014-07-29 SOURCE:MOA
A China-US joint study has recently made a breakthrough in the "diversity-oriented combinatorial biosynthesis of benzenediol lactone scaffolds by subunit shuffling of fungal polyketide synthases'. The study was conducted by Prof. Lin Min and his research team from the Biotechnology Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS), and Prof. Molnar and his research team from the School of Natural Resources & the Environment of the University of Arizona of the United States.
It is believed that the research findings, with important values for both academic study and industrial application, will provide a new strategy or approach for the discovery and development of drugs and biological active substances in agriculture.
Benzenediol lactone (BDL) polyketides are privileged structures whose various members bind to distinct receptors or modulate the heat shock response and the immune system. BDLs are biosynthesized by collaborating polyketide synthase enzyme pairs in fungi. Coexpressing random heterocombinations of these enzymes from different BDL biosynthetic pathways in yeast cells is shown here to lead to the one-pot, one-step combinatorial biosynthesis of structurally diverse polyketides in practical amounts. Combinatorial biosynthesis promises to generate a novel unexplored source of bioactive molecules in an environmentally sustainable, economical, and inherently scalable manner. Broadening the medicinally relevant chemical space of polyketides by such methods will provide unnatural products as valuable entry points for drug discovery and development.
The research findings were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PANS) on July 22, 2014.
Adapted from
http://www.cnchemicals.com/;allch=&submit=Go