Engineered and total biosynthesis of fungal specialized metabolites

authored by

Russell J. Cox

Abstract

Filamentous fungi produce a very wide range of complex and often bioactive metabolites, demonstrating their inherent ability as hosts of complex biosynthetic pathways. Recent advances in molecular sciences related to fungi have afforded the development of new tools that allow the rational total biosynthesis of highly complex specialized metabolites in a single process. Increasingly, these pathways can also be engineered to produce new metabolites. Engineering can be at the level of gene deletion, gene addition, formation of mixed pathways, engineering of scaffold synthases and engineering of tailoring enzymes. Combination of these approaches with hosts that can metabolize low-value waste streams opens the prospect of one-step syntheses from garbage. [Figure not available: see fulltext.].

Organisation(s)

Centre of Biomolecular Drug Research (BMWZ)

Type

Review article

Journal

Nature Reviews Chemistry

Volume

8

Pages

61–78

No. of pages

18

Publication date

01.2024

Publication status

Published

Peer reviewed

Yes

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Chemistry(all), Chemical Engineering(all)

Electronic version(s)

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41570-023-00564-0 (Access: Closed)