Browse by author
Lookup NU author(s): Dr Gail Payne, Amanda Jones, Professor Michael Goodfellow
Full text for this publication is not currently held within this repository. Alternative links are provided below where available.
Metabolic diversity is being studied intensively by evolutionary biologists, but so far there has been no comparison of biosynthetic pathways leading to a particular secondary metabolite in both prokaryotes and eukaryotes. We have detected the bioactive anthraquinone chrysophanol, which serves as a chemical defense in diverse eukaryotic organisms, in a bacterial Nocardia strain, thereby permitting the first comparative biosynthetic study. Two basic modes of folding a polyketide chain to fused-ring aromatic structures have so far been described: mode F (referring to fungi) and mode S (from Streptomyces). We have demonstrated that in eukaryotes (fungi, higher plants and insects), chrysophanol is formed via folding mode F. In actinomycetes, by contrast, the cyclization follows mode S. Thus, chrysophanol is the first polyketide synthase product that is built up by more than one polyketide folding mode. © 2006 Nature Publishing Group.
Author(s): Bringmann G, Noll TF, Gulder TAM, Grune M, Dreyer M, Wilde C, Pankewitz F, Hilker M, Payne GD, Jones AL, Goodfellow M, Fiedler H-P
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: Nature Chemical Biology
Year: 2006
Volume: 2
Issue: 8
Pages: 429-433
ISSN (print): 1552-4450
ISSN (electronic): 1552-4469
Publisher: Nature Publishing Group
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nchembio805
DOI: 10.1038/nchembio805
PubMed id: 16829953
Altmetrics provided by Altmetric
