Microbial Natural Products and Biosynthesis

Structural and Stereochemical Elucidation of Cyanochelin C, a Siderophore Associated with Novel Class of Cyanobacterial Acyl Hydrolases

Cyanochelin C, a non-acylated peptide siderophore from Atacama Desert Myxacorys chilensis, was fully stereochemically resolved; its gene cluster carries CcsQ, a putative deacylase from a cyanobacteria-specific, siderophore-linked acylase lineage.

Substrate-dependent crosslinking by the cytochrome P450 from aminopyruvatide biosynthesis

The P450 ApyO crosslinks a 10-residue C-terminal peptide, and substitutions in the YLY motif switch the linkage among C−C, N−C and C−O bonds.

PARAS: high-accuracy machine-learning of substrate specificities in nonribosomal peptide synthetases

Random forest predictors PARAS and PARASECT, trained on 3,653 curated adenylation domains, outperform earlier NRPS substrate predictors and correctly assigned L-Trp to an unusual tryptopeptin synthetase domain.

Convergent evolution of psilocybin biosynthesis by psychedelic mushrooms

Comparative mushroom genomics and fly-rearing experiments reveal an alternative psilocybin biosynthetic gene cluster in Inocybe corydalina, horizontal transfer of the canonical cluster, and incomplete defense against dipteran larvae.

Accurate de novo identification of biosynthetic gene clusters with GECCO

A linear conditional random field over ordered protein-domain annotations finds biosynthetic gene clusters de novo more precisely than DeepBGC and runs over three times faster on one CPU.

CRISPR-mediated activation of biosynthetic gene clusters for bioactive molecule discovery in filamentous fungi

A dLbCas12a-VPR CRISPR activation system works in Aspergillus nidulans, boosting microperfuranone output from the native micA gene and revealing dehydromicroperfuranone as the mic cluster product.

HEx: a heterologous expression platform for the discovery of fungal natural products

A yeast-based refactoring platform (HEx) with new inducible promoters, an engineered host strain, and homology-based assembly expressed 41 cryptic fungal gene clusters; 22 yielded non-native compounds.