title: Biosynthesis of thiopeptide antibiotics and their pathway engineering.
abstract: Thiopeptide antibiotics, a growing class of highly modified polythiazolyl peptides, have long been known for their remarkable bioactivities and unusual modes of actions. Uncovering of the ribosomal origin of thiopeptides now sets the stage for appreciating the initially undervalued modifications of the precursor peptides to afford the astonishing structure complexity. In this Highlight, we discuss the advances during the past four years in understanding the generality and specificity of thiopeptide biosynthesis, and on this basis, in expanding the structural diversity by pathway engineering.
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Bioorganic and Natural Products Chemistry, Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 345 Lingling Road, Shanghai 200032, China.
authors.forename: Qi
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Wen
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Liu
mesh_terms: D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000900:Anti-Bacterial Agents / Q000096:biosynthesis; D006801:Humans; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D015394:Molecular Structure; D010452:Peptide Biosynthesis; D013302:Streptomyces
chemical_list: D000900:Anti-Bacterial Agents