Bacterial terpene biosynthesis: Challenges and opportunities for pathway engineering
Name
1860-5397-15-283.pdf
Description
Published version
Size
1.09 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
912d1b337dcde8037e05181c2e113e27
Author(s)
Lin, Geng-Min
Voigt, Christopher A.
Date Issued
November 2019
Journal
Beilstein Journal of Organic Chemistry
Publisher
Beilstein Institut
Citation
Helfrich, Eric J. N. et al. “Bacterial terpene biosynthesis: Challenges and opportunities for pathway engineering.” Beilstein Journal of Organic Chemistry 15 (2019): 2889-2906 © 2019 The Author(s)
Version
Final published version
Abstract
Terpenoids are the largest and structurally most diverse class of natural products. They possess potent and specific biological activity in multiple assays and against diseases, including cancer and malaria as notable examples. Although the number of characterized terpenoid molecules is huge, our knowledge of how they are biosynthesized is limited, particularly when compared to the well-studied thiotemplate assembly lines. Bacteria have only recently been recognized as having the genetic potential to biosynthesize a large number of complex terpenoids, but our current ability to associate genetic potential with molecular structure is severely restricted. The canonical terpene biosynthetic pathway uses a single enzyme to form a cyclized hydrocarbon backbone followed by modifications with a suite of tailoring enzymes that can generate dozens of different products from a single backbone. This functional promiscuity of terpene biosynthetic pathways renders terpene biosynthesis susceptible to rational pathway engineering using the latest developments in the field of synthetic biology. These engineered pathways will not only facilitate the rational creation of both known and novel terpenoids, their development will deepen our understanding of a significant branch of biosynthesis. The biosynthetic insights gained will likely empower a greater degree of engineering proficiency for non-natural terpene biosynthetic pathways and pave the way towards the biotechnological production of high value terpenoids.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Biological Engineering
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.3762/bjoc.15.283
