Evolution-Informed Discovery of the Naphthalenone Biosynthetic Pathway in Fungi.

ABSTRACT: Fungi produce a wide diversity of secondary metabolites with interesting biological activities for the health, industrial, and agricultural sectors. While fungal genomes have revealed an unexpectedly high number of biosynthetic pathways that far exceeds the number of known molecules, accessing and characterizing this hidden diversity remain highly challenging. Here, we applied a combined phylogenetic dereplication and comparative genomics strategy to explore eight lichenizing fungi. The determination of the evolutionary relationships of aromatic polyketide pathways resulted in the identification of an uncharacterized biosynthetic pathway that is conserved in distant fungal lineages. The heterologous expression of the homologue from Aspergillus parvulus linked this pathway to naphthalenone

SUBMITTER: Mosunova OV 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9239057 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature