Biosynthesis of cyanobacterin opens up new class of natural compounds

Fermentation of cyanobacteria in a photobioreactor at TU Dresden. Copyright: Prof. Tobias Gulder Researchers in the groups of Prof. Tobias Gulder from TU Dresden and Prof. Tanja Gulder from Leipzig University have succeeded in understanding the biosynthetic mechanisms for the production of the natural product cyanobacterin, which in Nature is produced in small quantities by the cyanobacteria Scytonema hofmanni. In the process, they also discovered a new class of enzymes for building carbon-carbon bonds. The (bio)chemists are thus significantly expanding the biocatalytic repertoire currently known from Nature and are opening up new, sustainable biotechnological applications in medicine and agriculture. The results of the collaboration have now been published in the renowned. The fact that Nature is an excellent chemist is demonstrated by the abundance of molecules, so-called natural products, which it produces biosynthetically. These natural products are also of central importance to us humans.