Characterization of a SAM-dependent fluorinase from a latent biosynthetic pathway for fluoroacetate and 4-fluorothreonine formation in Nocardia brasiliensis [version 1; referees: 2 approved]

Fluorination has been widely used in chemical synthesis, but is rare in nature. The only known biological fluorination scope is represented by the pathway fl from that produces fluoroacetate (FAc) and Streptomyces cattleya 4-fluorothreonine (4-FT). Here we report the identification of a novel pathway for FAc and 4-FT biosynthesis from the actinomycetoma-causing pathogen ATCC 700358. The new pathway shares overall Nocardia brasiliensis conservation with the pathway in . Biochemical characterization of fl S. cattleya the conserved domains revealed a novel fluorinase NobA that can biosynthesize 5’-fluoro-5’-deoxyadenosine (5’-FDA) from inorganic fluoride and -adenosyl-l-methionine (SAM). The NobA shows similar halide specificity and S characteristics to the fluorination enzyme FlA of the pathway. Kinetic fl parameters for fluoride ( 4153 μM, 0.073 min ) and SAM ( 416 μM, K k K k 0.139 min ) have been determined, revealing that NobA is slightly (2.3 fold) slower than FlA. Upon sequence comparison, we finally identified a distinct loop region in the fluorinases that probably accounts for the disparity of fluorination activity. Xudong Qu ( ) Corresponding author: [email protected] Wang Y, Deng Z and Qu X. How to cite this article: Characterization of a SAM-dependent fluorinase from a latent biosynthetic pathway 2014, :61 for fluoroacetate and 4-fluorothreonine formation in [version 1; referees: 2 approved] Nocardia brasiliensis F1000Research 3 (doi: ) 10.12688/f1000research.3-61.v1 © 2014 Wang Y . This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the , which Copyright: et al Creative Commons Attribution Licence permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Data associated with the article are available under the terms of the (CC0 1.0 Public domain dedication). Creative Commons Zero "No rights reserved" data waiver This work was supported in part by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31270119, 31322002) and the program Grant information: for New Century Excellent Talents in University (NCET-12-0423). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Competing interests: No competing interests were disclosed. 19 Feb 2014, :61 (doi: ) First published: 3 10.12688/f1000research.3-61.v1 Referee Status: