1. Expanding the Bioactive Chemical Space of Anthrabenzoxocinones through Engineering the Highly Promiscuous Biosynthetic Modification Steps
- Author
-
Linjun Zhou, Zixin Deng, Xianyi Mei, Chun Lei, Hui Zhang, Xiaoli Yan, Xudong Qu, Mingjia Yu, and Guangqing Shen
- Subjects
Staphylococcus aureus ,Methyltransferase ,Halogenation ,Stereochemistry ,Stereoisomerism ,Anthraquinones ,010402 general chemistry ,01 natural sciences ,Biochemistry ,Heterocyclic Compounds, 4 or More Rings ,Methylation ,Structure-Activity Relationship ,Anti-Infective Agents ,Structure–activity relationship ,chemistry.chemical_classification ,010405 organic chemistry ,Chemistry ,General Medicine ,computer.file_format ,Methyltransferases ,Antimicrobial ,Chemical space ,Streptomyces ,0104 chemical sciences ,Enzyme ,Multigene Family ,Molecular Medicine ,ABX test ,Genetic Engineering ,computer ,Bacillus subtilis - Abstract
Anthrabenzoxocinones (ABXs) including (-)-ABXs and (+)-ABXs are a group of bacterial FabF-specific inhibitors with potent antimicrobial activity of resistant strains. Optimization of their chemical structures is a promising method to develop potent antibiotics. Through biosynthetic investigation, we herein identified and characterized two highly promiscuous enzymes involved in the (-)-ABX structural modification. The promiscuous halogenase and methyltransferase can respectively introduce halogen-modifications into various positions of the ABX scaffolds and methylation to highly diverse substrates. Manipulation of their activity in both of the (-)-ABXs and (+)-ABXs biosyntheses led to the generation of 14 novel ABX analogues of both enantiomers. Bioactivity assessment revealed that a few of the analogues showed significantly improved antimicrobial activity, with the C3-hydroxyl and chlorine substitutions critical for their activity. This study enormously expands the bioactive chemical space of the ABX family and FabF-specific inhibitors. The disclosed broad-selective biosynthetic machineries and structure-activity relationship provide a solid basis for further generation of potent antimicrobial agents.
- Published
- 2017