Abstract
Some Escherichia coli bacteria in the gut produce a family of metabolites called colibactins, which are associated with increased risk of colon cancer in people. But for more than a decade after its discovery, researchers couldn’t isolate colibactin and had no clue what it looked like. Two teams have previously reported structures of DNA-colibactin adducts (Biochemistry 2018, DOI: 10.1021/acs.biochem.8b01023; Science 2019, DOI: 10.1126/science.aar7785), but they didn’t figure out the whole structure of colibactin. Now, one of those teams—Jason M. Crawford, Seth B. Herzon, and coworkers at Yale University—has deduced the structure of the major colibactin metabolite from a cross-linked adduct of the molecule with DNA (Science 2019, DOI: 10.1126/science.aax2685). In the process of determining the structure, the researchers developed a synthesis that will make future studies of the molecule easier. “With these latest results from two independent labs, colibactin structure is now resolved,” says Jean-Philippe Nougayrède, who studies pathogenic and
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