A large number of therapeutically useful cyclic and linear peptides of bacteria or fungal origin are synthesized via a template-directed, nucleic-acid-independent nonribosomal mechanism. This process is carried out by mega-enzymes called nonribosomal peptide synthetases (NRPSs). NRPSs contain repeated coordinated groups of active sites called modules, and each module is composed of several doma...

Abstract Repurposing the enzymes in microbial metabolism such as nonribosomal peptide synthetases (NRPSs) is explored a route towards better antibiotics. NRPSs are gigantic enzymatic assembly lines that form highly modified peptides from diverse building blocks. A novel hydroxamate assay detects full substrate profiles of cell-like mixtures. Facile recording has applications natural product dis...

Cyclization of linear peptidyl precursors produced by nonribosomal peptide synthetases (NRPSs) is an important step in the biosynthesis of bioactive cyclic peptides. Whereas bacterial NRPSs use thioesterase domains to perform the cyclization, fungal NRPSs have apparently evolved to use a different enzymatic route. In verified fungal NRPSs that produce macrocyclic peptides, each megasynthetase t...

Nonribosomal peptide synthetases (NRPSs) assemble a large group of structurally and functionally diverse natural products. While the iterative catalytic mechanism of bacterial NRPSs is known, it remains unclear how fungal NRPSs create products of desired length. Here we show that fungal iterative NRPSs adopt an alternate incorporation strategy. Beauvericin and bassianolide synthetases have the ...

Polyketide synthase (PKSs) and nonribosomal peptide synthetase (NRPSs) are large multimodular enzymes involved in biosynthesis of polyketide and peptide toxins produced by fungi. Furthermore, hybrid enzymes, in which a reducing PKS region is fused to a single NRPS module, are also responsible of the synthesis of peptide-polyketide metabolites in fungi. The genes encoding for PKSs and NRPSs have...

Polyketide synthases (PKSs) and/or nonribosomal peptide synthetases (NRPSs) are central components of secondary metabolism in bacteria, plants, and fungi. In filamentous fungi, diverse PKSs and NRPSs participate in the biosynthesis of secondary metabolites such as pigments, antibiotics, siderophores, and mycotoxins. However, many secondary metabolites as well as the enzymes involved in their pr...