Non-enzymatic reactions in biogenesis of fungal natural products.

Abstract

Fungi have long been regarded as abundant sources of natural products (NPs) exhibiting significant biological activities. Decades of studies on the biosynthesis of fungal NPs revealed that most of the biosynthetic steps are catalyzed by sophisticated enzymes encoded in biosynthetic gene clusters, whereas some reactions proceed without enzymes. These non-enzymatic reactions complicate biosynthetic analysis of NPs and play important roles in diversifying the structure of the products. Therefore, knowledge on the non-enzymatic reactions is important for elucidating the biosynthetic mechanism. This review focuses on non-enzymatic reactions we recently encountered during biosynthetic studies of four types of NPs (viridicatins, Sch210972, lentopeptins, and lentofuranine).