Structural basis of nonribosomal peptide macrocyclization in fungi
October 17th, 2016 by Jinru Zhang
Nature Chemical Biology 12, 1001 (2016). doi:10.1038/nchembio.2202
Authors: Jinru Zhang, Nicholas Liu, Ralph A Cacho, Zhou Gong, Zhu Liu, Wenming Qin, Chun Tang, Yi Tang & Jiahai Zhou
Nonribosomal peptide synthetases (NRPSs) in fungi biosynthesize important pharmaceutical compounds, including penicillin, cyclosporine and echinocandin. To understand the fungal strategy of forging the macrocyclic peptide linkage, we determined the crystal structures of the terminal condensation-like (CT) domain and the holo thiolation (T)-CT complex of Penicillium aethiopicum TqaA. The first, to our knowledge, structural depiction of the terminal module in a fungal NRPS provides a molecular blueprint for generating new macrocyclic peptide natural products.