Mutasynthesis of Rapamycin Analogues through the Manipulation of a Gene Governing Starter Unit Biosynthesis

The shikimate pathway: gateway to metabolic diversity

Covering: 1997 to 2023The shikimate pathway is the metabolic process responsible for the biosynthesis of the aromatic amino acids phenylalanine, tyrosine, and tryptophan. Seven metabolic steps convert phosphoenolpyruvate (PEP) and erythrose 4-phosphate (E4P) into shikimate and ultimately chorismate, which serves as the branch point for dedicated aromatic amino acid biosynthesis. Bacteria, fungi, algae, and plants (yet not animals) biosynthesize chorismate and exploit its intermediates in their specialized metabolism. This review highlights the metabolic diversity derived from intermediates of the shikimate pathway along the seven steps from PEP and E4P to chorismate, as well as additional sections on compounds derived from prephenate, anthranilate and the synonymous aminoshikimate pathway. We discuss the genomic basis and biochemical support leading to shikimate-derived antibiotics, lipids, pigments, cofactors, and other metabolites across the tree of life.

Engineering biosynthetic enzymes for industrial natural product synthesis

Covering: 2000 to 2020 Natural products and their derivatives are commercially important medicines, agrochemicals, flavors, fragrances, and food ingredients. Industrial strategies to produce these structurally complex molecules encompass varied combinations of chemical synthesis, biocatalysis, and extraction from natural sources. Interest in engineering natural product biosynthesis began with the advent of genetic tools for pathway discovery. Genes and strains can now readily be synthesized, mutated, recombined, and sequenced. Enzyme engineering has succeeded commercially due to the development of genetic methods, analytical technologies, and machine learning algorithms. Today, engineered biosynthetic enzymes from organisms spanning the tree of life are used industrially to produce diverse molecules. These biocatalytic processes include single enzymatic steps, multienzyme cascades, and engineered native and heterologous microbial strains. This review will describe how biosynthetic enzymes have been engineered to enable commercial and near-commercial syntheses of natural products and their analogs.

Chorismate- and isochorismate converting enzymes: versatile catalysts acting on an important metabolic node

Chorismate and isochorismate represent an important branching point connecting primary and secondary metabolism in bacteria, fungi, archaea and plants. Chorismate- and isochorismate-converting enzymes are potential targets for new bioactive compounds, as well as valuable biocatalysts for the in vivo and in vitro synthesis of fine chemicals. The diversity of the products of chorismate- and isochorismate-converting enzymes is reflected in the enzymatic three-dimensional structures and molecular mechanisms. Due to the high reactivity of chorismate and its derivatives, these enzymes have evolved to be accurately tailored to their respective reaction; at the same time, many of them exhibit a fascinating flexibility regarding side reactions and acceptance of alternative substrates. Here, we give an overview of the different (sub)families of chorismate- and isochorismate-converting enzymes, their molecular mechanisms, and three-dimensional structures. In addition, we highlight important results of mutagenetic approaches that generate a broader understanding of the influence of distinct active site residues for product formation and the conversion of one subfamily into another. Based on this, we discuss to what extent the recent advances in the field might influence the general mechanistic understanding of chorismate- and isochorismate-converting enzymes. Recent discoveries of new chorismate-derived products and pathways, as well as biocatalytic conversions of non-physiological substrates, highlight how this vast field is expected to continue developing in the future.

Biosynthesis of depsipeptides with a 3-hydroxybenzoate moiety and selective anticancer activities involves a chorismatase

Neoantimycins are anticancer compounds of 15-membered ring antimycin-type depsipeptides. They are biosynthesized by a hybrid multimodular protein complex of nonribosomal peptide synthetase (NRPS) and polyketide synthase (PKS), typically from the starting precursor 3-formamidosalicylate. Examining fermentation extracts of Streptomyces conglobatus, here we discovered four new neoantimycin analogs, unantimycins B-E, in which 3-formamidosalicylates are replaced by an unusual 3-hydroxybenzoate (3-HBA) moiety. Unantimycins B-E exhibited levels of anticancer activities similar to those of the chemotherapeutic drug cisplatin in human lung cancer, colorectal cancer, and melanoma cells. Notably, they mostly displayed no significant toxicity toward noncancerous cells, unlike the serious toxicities generally reported for antimycin-type natural products. Using site-directed mutagenesis and heterologous expression, we found that unantimycin productions are correlated with the activity of a chorismatase homolog, the nat-hyg5 gene, from a type I PKS gene cluster. Biochemical analysis confirmed that the catalytic activity of Nat-hyg5 generates 3-HBA from chorismate. Finally, we achieved selective production of unantimycins B and C by engineering a chassis host. On the basis of these findings, we propose that unantimycin biosynthesis is directed by the neoantimycin-producing NRPS-PKS complex and initiated with the starter unit of 3-HBA. The elucidation of the biosynthetic unantimycin pathway reported here paves the way to improve the yield of these compounds for evaluation in oncotherapeutic applications.

An Artificial Pathway for Isoprenoid Biosynthesis Decoupled from Native Hemiterpene Metabolism

Isoprenoids are constructed in nature using hemiterpene building blocks that are biosynthesized from lengthy enzymatic pathways with little opportunity to deploy precursor-directed biosynthesis. Here, an artificial alcohol-dependent hemiterpene biosynthetic pathway was designed and coupled to several isoprenoid biosynthetic systems, affording lycopene and a prenylated tryptophan in robust yields. This approach affords a potential route to diverse non-natural hemiterpenes and by extension isoprenoids modified with non-natural chemical functionality. Accordingly, the prototype chemo-enzymatic pathway is a critical first step toward the construction of engineered microbial strains for bioconversion of simple scalable building blocks into complex isoprenoid scaffolds.

Structure elucidation and biosynthetic gene cluster analysis of caniferolides A–D, new bioactive 36-membered macrolides from the marine-derived Streptomyces caniferus CA-271066

The structures of caniferolides A–D have been determined combining NMR and bioinformatics prediction of the absolute configuration.

Chorismatases – the family is growing

A newly discovered subfamily of chorismatases catalyses the same reaction as chorismate lyases (cleavage of chorismate to 4-hydroxybenzoate), but does not suffer from product inhibition.

Characterization of the Polyspecific Transferase of Murine Type I Fatty Acid Synthase (FAS) and Implications for Polyketide Synthase (PKS) Engineering

Fatty acid synthases (FASs) and polyketide synthases (PKSs) condense acyl compounds to fatty acids and polyketides, respectively. Both, FASs and PKSs, harbor acyltransferases (ATs), which select substrates for condensation by β-ketoacyl synthases (KSs). Here, we present the structural and functional characterization of the polyspecific malonyl/acetyltransferase (MAT) of murine FAS. We assign kinetic constants for the transacylation of the native substrates, acetyl- and malonyl-CoA, and demonstrate the promiscuity of FAS to accept structurally and chemically diverse CoA-esters. X-ray structural data of the KS-MAT didomain in a malonyl-loaded state suggests a MAT-specific role of an active site arginine in transacylation. Owing to its enzymatic properties and its accessibility as a separate domain, MAT of murine FAS may serve as versatile tool for engineering PKSs to provide custom-tailored access to new polyketides that can be applied in antibiotic and antineoplastic therapy.

Diversity oriented biosynthesis via accelerated evolution of modular gene clusters

Erythromycin, avermectin and rapamycin are clinically useful polyketide natural products produced on modular polyketide synthase multienzymes by an assembly-line process in which each module of enzymes in turn specifies attachment of a particular chemical unit. Although polyketide synthase encoding genes have been successfully engineered to produce novel analogues, the process can be relatively slow, inefficient, and frequently low-yielding. We now describe a method for rapidly recombining polyketide synthase gene clusters to replace, add or remove modules that, with high frequency, generates diverse and highly productive assembly lines. The method is exemplified in the rapamycin biosynthetic gene cluster where, in a single experiment, multiple strains were isolated producing new members of a rapamycin-related family of polyketides. The process mimics, but significantly accelerates, a plausible mechanism of natural evolution for modular polyketide synthases. Detailed sequence analysis of the recombinant genes provides unique insight into the design principles for constructing useful synthetic assembly-line multienzymes.

Reengineering polyketide synthase encoding genes to produce analogues of natural products can be slow and low-yielding. Here the authors use accelerated evolution to recombine the gene cluster for rapid production of rapamycin-related products.

New Prodigiosin Derivatives Obtained by Mutasynthesis in Pseudomonas putida

The deeply red-colored natural compound prodigiosin is a representative of the prodiginine alkaloid family, which possesses bioactivities as antimicrobial, antitumor, and antimalarial agents. Various bacteria including the opportunistic human pathogen Serratia marcescens and different members of the Streptomycetaceae and Pseudoalteromonadaceae produce prodiginines. In addition, these microbes generally accumulate many structurally related alkaloids making efficient prodiginine synthesis and purification difficult and expensive. Furthermore, it is known that structurally different natural prodiginine variants display differential bioactivities. In the herein described mutasynthesis approach, 13 different derivatives of prodigiosin were obtained utilizing the GRAS (generally recognized as safe) classified strain Pseudomonas putida KT2440. Genetic engineering of the prodigiosin pathway together with incorporation of synthetic intermediates thus resulted in the formation of a so far unprecedented structural diversity of new prodiginine derivatives in P. putida. Furthermore, the formed products allow reliable conclusions regarding the substrate specificity of PigC, the final condensing enzyme in the prodigiosin biosynthesis pathway of S. marcescens. The biological activity of prodigiosin toward modulation of autophagy was preserved in prodiginine derivatives. One prodiginine derivative displayed more potent autophagy inhibitory activity than the parent compound or the synthetic clinical candidate obatoclax.

The Uncommon Enzymology of Cis-Acyltransferase Assembly Lines

The enzymology of 135 assembly lines containing primarily cis-acyltransferase modules is comprehensively analyzed, with greater attention paid to less common phenomena. Diverse online transformations, in which the substrate and/or product of the reaction is an acyl chain bound to an acyl carrier protein, are classified so that unusual reactions can be compared and underlying assembly-line logic can emerge. As a complement to the chemistry surrounding the loading, extension, and offloading of assembly lines that construct primarily polyketide products, structural aspects of the assembly-line machinery itself are considered. This review of assembly-line phenomena, covering the literature up to 2017, should thus be informative to the modular polyketide synthase novice and expert alike.

Bluegenics: Bioactive Natural Products of Medicinal Relevance and Approaches to Their Diversification

Nature provides a valuable resource of medicinally relevant compounds, with many antimicrobial and antitumor agents entering clinical trials being derived from natural products. The generation of analogues of these bioactive natural products is important in order to gain a greater understanding of structure activity relationships; probing the mechanism of action, as well as to optimise the natural product's bioactivity and bioavailability. This chapter critically examines different approaches to generating natural products and their analogues, exploring the way in which synthetic and biosynthetic approaches may be blended together to enable expeditious access to new designer natural products.

An overview of rapamycin: from discovery to future perspectives

Rapamycin is an immunosuppressive metabolite produced from several actinomycete species. Besides its immunosuppressive activity, rapamycin and its analogs have additional therapeutic potentials, including antifungal, antitumor, neuroprotective/neuroregenerative, and lifespan extension activities. The core structure of rapamycin is derived from (4R,5R)-4,5-dihydrocyclohex-1-ene-carboxylic acid that is extended by polyketide synthase. The resulting linear polyketide chain is cyclized by incorporating pipecolate and further decorated by post-PKS modification enzymes. Herein, we review the discovery and biological activities of rapamycin as well as its mechanism of action, mechanistic target, biosynthesis, and regulation. In addition, we introduce the many efforts directed at enhancing the production of rapamycin and generating diverse analogs and also explore future perspectives in rapamycin research. This review will also emphasize the remarkable pilot studies on the biosynthesis and production improvement of rapamycin by Dr. Demain, one of the world's distinguished scientists in industrial microbiology and biotechnology.

An Efficient Method To Generate Gene Deletion Mutants of the Rapamycin-Producing Bacterium Streptomyces iranensis HM 35

Streptomyces iranensis HM 35 is an alternative rapamycin producer to Streptomyces rapamycinicus Targeted genetic modification of rapamycin-producing actinomycetes is a powerful tool for the directed production of rapamycin derivatives, and it has also revealed some key features of the molecular biology of rapamycin formation in S. rapamycinicus. The approach depends upon efficient conjugational plasmid transfer from Escherichia coli to Streptomyces, and the failure of this step has frustrated its application to Streptomyces iranensis HM 35. Here, by systematically optimizing the process of conjugational plasmid transfer, including screening of various media, and by defining optimal temperatures and concentrations of antibiotics and Ca(2+) ions in the conjugation media, we have achieved exconjugant formation for each of a series of gene deletions in S. iranensis HM 35. Among them were rapK, which generates the starter unit for rapamycin biosynthesis, and hutF, encoding a histidine catabolizing enzyme. The protocol that we have developed may allow efficient generation of targeted gene knockout mutants of Streptomyces species that are genetically difficult to manipulate.

IMPORTANCE

The developed protocol of conjugational plasmid transfer from Escherichia coli to Streptomyces iranensis may allow efficient generation of targeted gene knockout mutants of other genetically difficult to manipulate, but valuable, Streptomyces species.

Natural product discovery: past, present, and future

Microorganisms have provided abundant sources of natural products which have been developed as commercial products for human medicine, animal health, and plant crop protection. In the early years of natural product discovery from microorganisms (The Golden Age), new antibiotics were found with relative ease from low-throughput fermentation and whole cell screening methods. Later, molecular genetic and medicinal chemistry approaches were applied to modify and improve the activities of important chemical scaffolds, and more sophisticated screening methods were directed at target disease states. In the 1990s, the pharmaceutical industry moved to high-throughput screening of synthetic chemical libraries against many potential therapeutic targets, including new targets identified from the human genome sequencing project, largely to the exclusion of natural products, and discovery rates dropped dramatically. Nonetheless, natural products continued to provide key scaffolds for drug development. In the current millennium, it was discovered from genome sequencing that microbes with large genomes have the capacity to produce about ten times as many secondary metabolites as was previously recognized. Indeed, the most gifted actinomycetes have the capacity to produce around 30–50 secondary metabolites. With the precipitous drop in cost for genome sequencing, it is now feasible to sequence thousands of actinomycete genomes to identify the “biosynthetic dark matter” as sources for the discovery of new and novel secondary metabolites. Advances in bioinformatics, mass spectrometry, proteomics, transcriptomics, metabolomics and gene expression are driving the new field of microbial genome mining for applications in natural product discovery and development.

Rational biosynthetic approaches for the production of new-to-nature compounds in fungi

Filamentous fungi have the ability to produce a wide range of secondary metabolites some of which are potent toxins whereas others are exploited as food additives or drugs. Fungal natural products still play an important role in the discovery of new chemical entities for potential use as pharmaceuticals. However, in most cases they cannot be directly used as drugs due to toxic side effects or suboptimal pharmacokinetics. To improve drug-like properties, including bioactivity and stability or to produce better precursors for semi-synthetic routes, one needs to generate non-natural derivatives from known fungal secondary metabolites. In this minireview, we describe past and recent biosynthetic approaches for the diversification of fungal natural products, covering examples from precursor-directed biosynthesis, mutasynthesis, metabolic engineering and biocombinatorial synthesis. To illustrate the current state-of-the-art, challenges and pitfalls, we lay particular emphasis on the class of fungal cyclodepsipeptides which have been studied longtime for product diversification and which are of pharmaceutical relevance as drugs.

Site-specific bioalkylation of rapamycin by the RapM 16-O-methyltransferase

The methylation of natural products by S-adenosyl methionine (AdoMet, also known as SAM)-dependent methyltransferase enzymes is a common tailoring step in many biosynthetic pathways. The introduction of methyl substituents can affect the biological and physicochemical properties of the secondary metabolites produced. Recently it has become apparent that some AdoMet-dependent methyltransferases exhibit promiscuity and will accept AdoMet analogues enabling the transfer of alternative alkyl groups. In this study we have characterised a methyltransferase, RapM, which is involved in the biosynthesis of the potent immunosuppressive agent rapamycin. We have shown that recombinant RapM regioselectively methylates the C16 hydroxyl group of desmethyl rapamycin precursors in vitro and is promiscuous in accepting alternative co-factors in addition to AdoMet. A coupled enzyme system was developed, including a mutant human enzyme methionine adenosyl transferase (MAT), along with RapM, which was used to prepare alkylated rapamycin derivatives (rapalogs) with alternative ethyl and allyl ether groups, derived from simple S-ethyl or S-allyl methionine analogues. There are two other methyltransferases RapI and RapQ which provide methyl substituents of rapamycin. Consequently, using the enzymatic approach described here, it should be possible to generate a diverse array of alkylated rapalogs, with altered properties, that would be difficult to obtain by traditional synthetic approaches.

Bioengineering and semisynthesis of an optimized cyclophilin inhibitor for treatment of chronic viral infection

Inhibition of host-encoded targets, such as the cyclophilins, provides an opportunity to generate potent high barrier to resistance antivirals for the treatment of a broad range of viral diseases. However, many host-targeted agents are natural products, which can be difficult to optimize using synthetic chemistry alone. We describe the orthogonal combination of bioengineering and semisynthetic chemistry to optimize the drug-like properties of sanglifehrin A, a known cyclophilin inhibitor of mixed nonribosomal peptide/polyketide origin, to generate the drug candidate NVP018 (formerly BC556). NVP018 is a potent inhibitor of hepatitis B virus, hepatitis C virus (HCV), and HIV-1 replication, shows minimal inhibition of major drug transporters, and has a high barrier to generation of both HCV and HIV-1 resistance.

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Optimization and preclinical analysis of a bacterial natural product

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Combination of bioengineering and semisynthetic chemistry

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Preclinical analysis revealing potent antiviral activity

New, non-quinone fluorogeldanamycin derivatives strongly inhibit Hsp90

Streptomyces hygroscopicus is a natural producer of geldanamycin. Mutasynthetic supplementation of an AHBA-blocked mutant with all possible monofluoro 3-aminobenzoic acids provided new fluorogeldanamycins. These showed strong antiproliferative activity and inhibitory effects on human heat shock protein Hsp90. Binding to Hsp90 in the low nanomolar range was determined from molecular modelling, AFM analysis and by calorimetric studies.

Mutational biosynthesis of a FK506 analogue containing a non-natural starter unit

A FK506 analogue containing a non-natural starter unit was obtained through mutasynthesis by feeding cultures of Streptomyces sp. KCTC 11604BP fkbO deletion mutant with 3-cyclohexene-1-carboxylic acid. The structure of the new compound, 32-dehydroxy-FK506, and its biological activities were determined.

Mutational biosynthesis of tacrolimus analogues by fkbO deletion mutant of Streptomyces sp. KCTC 11604BP

Tacrolimus (FK506) is an important macrocyclic polyketide showing antifungal and immunosuppressive activities, as well as neuroregenerative properties. Tacrolimus biosynthetic machinery should incorporate the shikimate-derived 4,5-dihydroxycyclohex-1-enecarboxylic acid (DHCHC) as a biosynthetic starter unit into the biosynthetic line of tacrolimus. fkbO is a homologue of rapK encoding chorismatase related to the biosynthesis of starter unit DHCHC from chorismate in the rapamycin biosynthetic gene cluster. FkbO and RapK are good targets for mutational biosynthesis to produce novel analogues of tacrolimus, ascomycin, and rapamycin, which could be important drugs for clinical application in the treatment of cancer and immune and neurodegenerative diseases. To make novel tacrolimus analogues, we prepared an fkbO in-frame deletion mutant, Streptomyces sp. GT110507, from a tacrolimus high producer. We scrutinized the cyclic carboxylic acids that were possibly incorporated instead of DHCHC by precursor-directed mutasynthesis using Streptomyces sp. GT110507 to lead tacrolimus analogues. Among them, trans-4-hydroxycyclohexanecarboxylic acid and 3-hydroxybenzoic acid were successfully incorporated into the tacrolimus backbone, which led to the production of 31-desmethoxytacrolimus and TC-225, respectively. Especially, adding of trans-4-hydroxycyclohexanecarboxylic acid produced a high amount (55 mg/L) of 31-desmethoxytacrolimus. Interestingly, in the rapK mutant, it has been reported that the incorporation of cyclohexanecarboxylic acid (CHC) led to 39-desmethoxy rapamycin. However, in Streptomyces sp. GT110507, CHC is not successfully incorporated. This discrepancy should reflect the differences in the DHCHC biosynthesis mechanism and/or substrate specificity of starter unit loading machineries (FkbP and RapP) of tacrolimus and rapamycin.

Novel FK506 and FK520 analogues via mutasynthesis: mutasynthon scope and product characteristics

Novel FK506 and FK520 analogues were generated via biosynthetic engineering in order to generate analogue compounds with equal potency but improved pharmacological profiles compared to FK506.

The generation of "unnatural" products: synthetic biology meets synthetic chemistry

Natural product analogue generation is important, providing tools for chemical biology, enabling structure activity relationship determination and insight into the way in which natural products interact with their target biomolecules. The generation of analogues is also often necessary in order to improve bioavailability and to fine tune compounds' activity. This review provides an overview of the catalogue of approaches available for accessing series of analogues. Over the last few years there have been major advances in genome sequencing and the development of tools for biosynthetic pathway engineering; it is therefore becoming increasingly easy to combine molecular biology and synthetic organic chemistry in order to enable expeditious access to series of natural products. This review outlines the various ways of combining biology and chemistry that have been applied to analogue generation, drawing upon a series of examples to illustrate each approach.

Combinatorial biosynthesis of polyketides--a perspective

Since their discovery, polyketide synthases have been attractive targets of biosynthetic engineering to make 'unnatural' natural products. Although combinatorial biosynthesis has made encouraging advances over the past two decades, the field remains in its infancy. In this enzyme-centric perspective, we discuss the scientific and technological challenges that could accelerate the adoption of combinatorial biosynthesis as a method of choice for the preparation of encoded libraries of bioactive small molecules. Borrowing a page from the protein structure prediction community, we propose a periodic challenge program to vet the most promising methods in the field, and to foster the collective development of useful tools and algorithms.

Informatic strategies for the discovery of polyketides and nonribosomal peptides

A modern challenge and opportunity exists for in the ability to link genomic and metabolomic data, using novel informatic methods to find new bioactive natural products.

Effect of starter unit availability on the spectrum of manumycin-type metabolites produced by Streptomyces nodosus ssp. asukaensis

AIMS

Production of minor asukamycin congeners and its new derivatives by combination of targeted genetic manipulations with specific precursor feeding in the producer of asukamycin, Streptomyces nodosus ssp. asukaensis.

METHODS AND RESULTS

Structural variations of manumycins lie only in the diverse initiation of the 'upper' polyketide chain. Inactivation of the gene involved in the biosynthesis of cyclohexanecarboxylic acid (CHC) turned off the production of asukamycin in the mutant strain and allowed an increased production of other manumycins with the branched end of the upper chain. The ratio of produced metabolites was further affected by specific precursor feeding. Precursor-directed biosynthesis of a new asukamycin analogue (asukamycin I, 28%) with linear initiation of the upper chain was achieved by feeding norleucine to the mutant strain. Another asukamycin analogue with the unbranched upper chain (asukamycin H, 14%) was formed by the CHC-deficient strain expressing a heterologous gene putatively involved in the formation of the n-butyryl-CoA starter unit of manumycin A.

CONCLUSIONS

Combination of the described techniques proved to be an efficient tool for the biosynthesis of minor or novel manumycins.

SIGNIFICANCE AND IMPACT OF THE STUDY

Production of two novel asukamycin derivatives, asukamycins H and I, was achieved. Variations appeared in the upper polyketide chain, the major determinant of enzyme-inhibitory features of manumycins, affecting their cancerostatic or anti-inflammatory features.

Biosynthesis of the immunosuppressants FK506, FK520, and rapamycin involves a previously undescribed family of enzymes acting on chorismate

The macrocyclic polyketides FK506, FK520, and rapamycin are potent immunosuppressants that prevent T-cell proliferation through initial binding to the immunophilin FKBP12. Analogs of these molecules are of considerable interest as therapeutics in both metastatic and inflammatory disease. For these polyketides the starter unit for chain assembly is (4R,5R)-4,5-dihydroxycyclohex-1-enecarboxylic acid derived from the shikimate pathway. We show here that the first committed step in its formation is hydrolysis of chorismate to form (4R,5R)-4,5-dihydroxycyclohexa-1,5-dienecarboxylic acid. This chorismatase activity is encoded by fkbO in the FK506 and FK520 biosynthetic gene clusters, and by rapK in the rapamycin gene cluster of Streptomyces hygroscopicus. Purified recombinant FkbO (from FK520) efficiently catalyzed the chorismatase reaction in vitro, as judged by HPLC-MS and NMR analysis. Complementation using fkbO from either the FK506 or the FK520 gene cluster of a strain of S. hygroscopicus specifically deleted in rapK (BIOT-4010) restored rapamycin production, as did supplementation with (4R,5R)-4,5-dihydroxycyclohexa-1,5-dienecarboxylic acid. Although BIOT-4010 produced no rapamycin, it did produce low levels of BC325, a rapamycin analog containing a 3-hydroxybenzoate starter unit. This led us to identify the rapK homolog hyg5 as encoding a chorismatase/3-hydroxybenzoate synthase. Similar enzymes in other bacteria include the product of the bra8 gene from the pathway to the terpenoid natural product brasilicardin. Expression of either hyg5 or bra8 in BIOT-4010 led to increased levels of BC325. Also, purified Hyg5 catalyzed the predicted conversion of chorismate into 3-hydroxybenzoate. FkbO, RapK, Hyg5, and Bra8 are thus founder members of a previously unrecognized family of enzymes acting on chorismate.

The Catalytic Diversity of Multimodular Polyketide Synthases: Natural Product Biosynthesis Beyond Textbook Assembly Rules

Bacterial multimodular polyketide synthases (PKSs) are responsible for the biosynthesis of a wide range of pharmacologically active natural products. These megaenzymes contain numerous catalytic and structural domains and act as biochemical templates to generate complex polyketides in an assembly line-like fashion. While the prototypical PKS is composed of only a few different domain types that are fused together in a combinatorial fashion, an increasing number of enzymes is being found that contain additional components. These domains can introduce remarkably diverse modifications into polyketides. This review discusses our current understanding of such noncanonical domains and their role in expanding the biosynthetic versatility of bacterial PKSs.

Mupirocin: biosynthesis, special features and applications of an antibiotic from a gram-negative bacterium

Mupirocin is a polyketide antibiotic produced by Pseudomonas fluorescens. The biosynthetic cluster encodes 6 type I polyketide synthase multifunctional proteins and 29 single function proteins. The biosynthetic pathway belongs to the trans-AT group in which acyltransferase activity is provided by a separate polypeptide rather than in-cis as found in the original type I polyketide synthases. Special features of this group are in-cis methyltransferase domains and a trans-acting HMG-CoA synthase-cassette which insert α- and β- methyl groups respectively while enoyl reductase domains are absent from the condensing modules. In addition, for the mupirocin system, there is no obvious loading mechanism for initiation of the polyketide chain and many aspects of the pathway remain to be elucidated. Mupirocin inhibits isoleucyl-tRNA synthetase and has been used since 1985 to help prevent infection by methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, particularly within hospitals. Resistance to mupirocin was first detected in 1987 and high-level resistance in S. aureus is due to a plasmid-encoded second isoleucyl-tRNA synthetase, a more eukaryotic-like enzyme. Recent analysis of the biosynthetic pathway for thiomarinols from marine bacteria opens up possibilities to modify mupirocin so as to overcome this resistance.

Molecular insights on the biosynthesis of antitumour compounds by actinomycetes

Natural products are traditionally the main source of drug leads. In particular, many antitumour compounds are either natural products or derived from them. However, the search for novel antitumour drugs active against untreatable tumours, with fewer side-effects or with enhanced therapeutic efficiency, is a priority goal in cancer chemotherapy. Microorganisms, particularly actinomycetes, are prolific producers of bioactive compounds, including antitumour drugs, produced as secondary metabolites. Structural genes involved in the biosynthesis of such compounds are normally clustered together with resistance and regulatory genes, which facilitates the isolation of the gene cluster. The characterization of these clusters has represented, during the last 25 years, a great source of genes for the generation of novel derivatives by using combinatorial biosynthesis approaches: gene inactivation, gene expression, heterologous expression of the clusters or mutasynthesis. In addition, these techniques have been also applied to improve the production yields of natural and novel antitumour compounds. In this review we focus on some representative antitumour compounds produced by actinomycetes covering the genetic approaches used to isolate and validate their biosynthesis gene clusters, which finally led to generating novel derivatives and to improving the production yields.

Frontiers and opportunities in chemoenzymatic synthesis

Natural product biosynthetic pathways have evolved enzymes with myriad activities that represent an expansive array of chemical transformations for constructing secondary metabolites. Recently, harnessing the biosynthetic potential of these enzymes through chemoenzymatic synthesis has provided a powerful tool that often rivals the most sophisticated methodologies in modern synthetic chemistry and provides new opportunities for accessing chemical diversity. Herein, we describe our research efforts with enzymes from a broad collection of biosynthetic systems, highlighting recent progress in this exciting field.

An expeditious route to fluorinated rapamycin analogues by utilising mutasynthesis

Rapamycin is a drug with several important clinical uses. Its complex structure means that total synthesis of this natural product and its analogues is demanding and lengthy. A more expeditious approach is to utilise biosynthesis to enable the generation of otherwise synthetically intractable analogues. In order to achieve this, rules governing biosynthetic precursor substrate preference must be established. Through determining these rules and synthesising and administering suitable substrate precursors, we demonstrate the first generation of fluorinated rapamycin analogues. Here we report the generation of six new fluororapamycins.

Exploiting enzymatic promiscuity to engineer a focused library of highly selective antifungal and antiproliferative aureothin analogues

Aureothin is a shikimate-polyketide hybrid metabolite from Streptomyces thioluteus with a rare nitroaryl moiety, a chiral tetrahydrofuran ring, and an O-methylated pyrone ring. The antimicrobial and antitumor activities of aureothin have caught our interest in modulating its structure as well as its bioactivity profile. In an integrated approach using mutasynthesis, biotransformation, and combinatorial biosynthesis, a defined library of aureothin analogues was generated. The promiscuity of the polyketide synthase assembly line toward different starter units and the plasticity of the pyrone and tetrahydrofuran ring formation were exploited. A selection of 15 new aureothin analogues with modifications at the aryl residue, the pyrone ring, and the oxygenated backbone was produced on a preparative scale and fully characterized. Remarkably, various new aureothin derivatives are less cytotoxic than aureothin but have improved antiproliferative activities. Furthermore, we found that the THF ring is crucial for the remarkably selective activity of aureothin analogues against certain pathogenic fungi.

Biosynthesis of rapamycin and its regulation: past achievements and recent progress

Rapamycin and its analogs are clinically important macrolide compounds produced by Streptomyces hygroscopicus. They exhibit antifungal, immunosuppressive, antitumor, neuroprotective and antiaging activities. The core macrolactone ring of rapamycin is biosynthesized by hybrid type I modular polyketide synthase (PKS)/nonribosomal peptide synthetase systems primed with 4,5-dihydrocyclohex-1-ene-carboxylic acid. The linear polyketide chain is condensed with pipecolate by peptide synthetase, followed by cyclization to form the macrolide ring and modified by a series of post-PKS tailoring steps. The aim of this review was to outline past and recent advances in the biosynthesis and regulation of rapamycin, with an emphasis on the distinguished contributions of Professor Demain to the study of rapamycin. In addition, this article describes the biological activities as well as mechanism of action of rapamycin and its derivatives. Recent attempts to improve the productivity of rapamycin and generate diverse rapamycin analogs through mutasynthesis and mutagenesis are also introduced, along with some future perspectives.