Atlas of nonribosomal peptide and polyketide biosynthetic pathways reveals common occurrence of nonmodular enzymes.

ABSTRACT: Nonribosomal peptides and polyketides are a diverse group of natural products with complex chemical structures and enormous pharmaceutical potential. They are synthesized on modular nonribosomal peptide synthetase (NRPS) and polyketide synthase (PKS) enzyme complexes by a conserved thiotemplate mechanism. Here, we report the widespread occurrence of NRPS and PKS genetic machinery across the three domains of life with the discovery of 3,339 gene clusters from 991 organisms, by examining a total of 2,699 genomes. These gene clusters display extraordinarily diverse organizations, and a total of 1,147 hybrid NRPS/PKS clusters were found. Surprisingly, 10% of bacterial gene clusters lacked modular organization, and instead catalytic domains were mostly encoded as separate proteins. The finding

SUBMITTER: Wang H 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4078802 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature