Mycosphaerella fijiensis, causal agent of black Sigatoka disease of banana, is a Dothideomycete fungus closely related to fungi that produce polyketides important for plant pathogenicity. We utilized the M. fijiensis genome sequence to predict PKS genes and their gene clusters and make bioinformatics predictions about the types of compounds produced by these clusters. Eight PKS gene clusters we...

Cooperation between 6-m-r hemiketalization and 26-m-r macrolactonization is reported for a thioesterase (pimTE) in type-I polyketide synthase. Intriguingly, the R-hemiketal intermediate not only catalyzed by D179 residue, but also twists substrate hairpin structure to lactonizing pre-reaction state. Thus, pimTE believed be bifunctional enzyme, which can synergistically catalyze tandem formation...

Efficient polyketide synthesis derived from plasmid-borne heterologous Streptomyces polyketide synthase (PKS) gene clusters necessitates a suitable host strain. Well-characterized laboratory strains such as Streptomyces coelicolor or Streptomyces lividans and their frequently used derivatives carry endogenous genes for the synthesis of actinorhodin (among other PKS genes), which might interfere...

Conglobatin is an unusual C2-symmetrical macrodiolide from the bacterium Streptomyces conglobatus with promising antitumor activity. Insights into the genes and enzymes that govern both the assembly-line production of the conglobatin polyketide and its dimerization are essential to allow rational alterations to be made to the conglobatin structure. We have used a rapid, direct in vitro cloning ...

Polyketides are natural products frequently used for the treatment of various diseases, but their structural complexity hinders efficient derivatization. In this context, we recently introduced enzyme-directed mutasynthesis to incorporate non-native extender units into the biosynthesis of erythromycin. Modeling and mutagenesis studies led to the discovery of a variant of an acyltransferase doma...

nitric oxide is an important vasorelaxant factor that it inhibits platelet adhesion and proliferation of smooth muscle cells. no is synthesized from l-arginine by means of endothelial nitric oxide synthase (enos) which is an isoform of  nitric oxide synthase.in the present study, we examined  possible association between the 27 base pair (bp) repeat  polymorphism in intron 4 of the  enos3 gene ...