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Ribosome‐independent biosynthesis of biologically active peptides: Application of synthetic biology to generate structural diversity
Author(s) -
Giessen Tobias W.,
Marahiel Mohamed A.
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
febs letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.593
H-Index - 257
eISSN - 1873-3468
pISSN - 0014-5793
DOI - 10.1016/j.febslet.2012.01.017
Subject(s) - computational biology , ribosome , synthetic biology , biology , biosynthesis , biochemistry , rna , enzyme , gene
Peptide natural products continue to play an important role in modern medicine as last‐resort treatments of many life‐threatening diseases, as they display many interesting biological activities ranging from antibiotic to antineoplastic. A large fraction of these microbial natural products is assembled by ribosome‐independent mechanisms. Progress in sequencing technology and the mechanistic understanding of secondary metabolite pathways has led to the discovery of many formerly cryptic natural products and a molecular understanding of their assembly. Those advances enable us to apply protein and metabolic engineering approaches towards the manipulation of biosynthetic pathways. In this review we discuss the application potential of both templated and non‐templated pathways as well as chemoenzymatic strategies for the structural diversification and tailoring of peptide natural products.