title: Altering the glycosylation pattern of bioactive compounds.
abstract: Many bioactive natural products are glycosylated compounds in which the sugars are important or essential for biological activity. The isolation of several sugar biosynthesis gene clusters and glycosyltransferases from different antibiotic-producing organisms, and the increasing knowledge about these biosynthetic pathways opens up the possibility of generating novel bioactive compounds through combinatorial biosynthesis in the near future. Recent advances in this area indicate that antibiotic glycosyltransferases show some substrate flexibility that might allow us to alter the types of sugar transferred to the different aglycons or, less frequently, to change the position of its attachment.
authors.affiliation: Dept Biologia Funcional e Instituto Universitario de Oncología del Principado de Asturias (IUOPA), Universidad de Oviedo, 33006 Oviedo, Spain.
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Méndez
authors.forename: J A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Salas
mesh_terms: D000900:Anti-Bacterial Agents / Q000096:biosynthesis / Q000737:chemistry; D050260:Carbohydrate Metabolism; D004274:DNA, Recombinant; D005818:Genetic Engineering / Q000379:methods*; D006031:Glycosylation; D016695:Glycosyltransferases / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*; D010802:Phylogeny
chemical_list: D000900:Anti-Bacterial Agents; D004274:DNA, Recombinant; D016695:Glycosyltransferases