(Back)boning up on polyketides

Polyketides are the last major class of natural products that have not been successfully synthesized in Escherichia coli, the microorganism of choice for biosynthesis and biomanufacturing. Researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles, think they have overcome a major barrier to this biosynthesis by engineering E. coli to express a modified fungal enzyme that controls the synthetic process.¹A first-line application could be the production of doxorubicin analogs that are less toxic than the parent drug butmoredifficult and expensive to synthesize by other means.

"Many existing aromatic polyketides are synthesized by organisms that cannot be manipulated easily-or at all-genetically," said team leader Yi Tang, an associate professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at UCLA. With this platform, "we open up the biosynthesis of this family of compounds to the powerful E. coli genetic tools."...