Abstract
Varieties of alkaloids are known to be produced by various organisms, including bacteria, fungi and plants, as secondary metabolites that exhibit useful bioactivities. However, understanding of how those metabolites are biosynthesized still remains limited, because most of these compounds are isolated from plants and at a trace level of production. In this review, we focus on recent efforts in identifying the genes responsible for the biosynthesis of those nitrogen-containing natural products and elucidating the mechanisms involved in the biosynthetic processes. The alkaloids discussed in this review are ditryptophenaline (dimeric diketopiperazine alkaloid), saframycin (tetrahydroisoquinoline alkaloid), strictosidine (monoterpene indole alkaloid), ergotamine (ergot alkaloid) and opiates (benzylisoquinoline and morphinan alkaloid). This review also discusses the engineered biosynthesis of these compounds, primarily through heterologous reconstitution of target biosynthetic pathways in suitable hosts, such as Escherichia coli, Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Aspergillus nidulans. Those heterologous biosynthetic systems can be used to confirm the functions of the isolated genes, economically scale up the production of the alkaloids for commercial distributions and engineer the biosynthetic pathways to produce valuable analogs of the alkaloids. In particular, extensive involvement of oxidation reactions catalyzed by oxidoreductases, such as cytochrome P450s, during the secondary metabolite biosynthesis is discussed in details.
Highlights
Alkaloids were originally defined as organic compounds of plant origin that possess strong bioactivities and exhibit basicity that is attributed to the presence of nitrogen [1]
This successful production of ergot alkaloid biosynthetic intermediates in A. nidulans would facilitate the effort production of ergot alkaloid biosynthetic intermediates in A. nidulans would facilitate the effort toward toward achieving engineered biosynthesis of this class of natural products. Such a heterologous achieving engineered biosynthesis of this class of natural products. Such a heterologous biosynthetic biosynthetic platform would promote the study on the complex mechanism of ergot alkaloid biosynthesis and advance the drug discovery efforts that evolve around ergot-type natural products
The last section will look at opiates, which is a group of alkaloids that has been known to humans for about 6000 years and played a significant role as analgesic therapeutics and as abused recreational platform would promote the study on the complex mechanism of ergot alkaloid biosynthesis and advance the drug discovery efforts that evolve around ergot-type natural products
Summary
Alkaloids were originally defined as organic compounds of plant origin that possess strong bioactivities and exhibit basicity that is attributed to the presence of nitrogen [1]. Referred to other review articles for the recent efforts toward engineering plants for successful examples ofimproved reconstitution of alkaloid pathways in heterologous microbial engineering plants production of biosynthetic alkaloids their analogs [3,4]. We will discuss the recent progress pathways are responsible for of themethodology formation of ditryptophenaline (dimeric diketopiperazine theThose recentfive progress in the development for generating various compounds through development of methodology for generating various compounds heterologous reconstitution alkaloid), saframycin (tetrahydroisoquinoline alkaloid), strictosidinethrough (monoterpene heterologous reconstitution and engineering of biosynthesis pathways, especiallyindole those alkaloid), involved in ergotamine (ergot alkaloid) and opiates (benzylisoquinoline and morphinan alkaloid). We will discuss the recent progress in the development of methodology for generating various compounds through heterologous reconstitution and engineering of biosynthesis pathways, especially those involved in the bioproduction of opioids
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