Genome mining of labdane-related diterpenoids: Discovery of the two-enzyme pathway leading to (−)-sandaracopimaradiene in the fungus Arthrinium sacchari

• Fumito Sato,
• Terutaka Sonohara,
• Shunta Fujiki,
• Akihiro Sugawara,
• Yohei Morishita,
• Taro Ozaki and
• Teigo Asai

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2024, 20, 714–720, doi:10.3762/bjoc.20.65

• TCs subsequently catalyze the second cyclization to construct the polycyclic scaffold of natural products [5]. In plants, two independent αβγ tri-domain TCs, ent-CPP synthase (CPS) and ent-kaurene synthase (KS), are often used for this conversion [6], and a single bifunctional enzyme that successively

Efficient production of clerodane and ent-kaurane diterpenes through truncated artificial pathways in Escherichia coli

• Fang-Ru Li,
• Xiaoxu Lin,
• Qian Yang,
• Ning-Hua Tan and
• Liao-Bin Dong

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2022, 18, 881–888, doi:10.3762/bjoc.18.89

• alternative to bypass synthetic challenges. In this study, we constructed two truncated artificial pathways to efficiently produce terpentetriene and ent-kaurene, two representative clerodane and ent-kaurane diterpenes, in Escherichia coli. Both pathways depend on the exogenous addition of isoprenoid alcohol

• to reinforce the supply of IPP and DMAPP via two sequential phosphorylation reactions. Optimization of these constructs provided terpentetriene and ent-kaurene titers of 66 ± 4 mg/L and 113 ± 7 mg/L, respectively, in shake-flask fermentation. The truncated pathways to overproduce clerodane and ent

• -kaurane skeletons outlined here may provide an attractive route to prepare other privileged diterpene scaffolds. Keywords: artificial pathway; ent-kaurene; Escherichia coli; overproduction; terpentetriene; Introduction Diterpenoids, of which there are over 34,000 members (http://terokit.qmclab.com

Bacterial terpene biosynthesis: challenges and opportunities for pathway engineering

• Eric J. N. Helfrich,
• Geng-Min Lin,
• Christopher A. Voigt and
• Jon Clardy

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2019, 15, 2889–2906, doi:10.3762/bjoc.15.283

• selectivity observed from the transformation of their natural substrate. For the exploration of substrate promiscuity of plant-derived ent-kaurene oxidases, twenty combinations of type II/I diterpene TCs were coexpressed with one of the two ent-kaurene oxidases (CYPs) and their native CPRs from different

• pyrophosphate synthase, and GFPP geranylfarnesyl pyrophosphate. Mechanisms for type I, type II, and type II/type I tandem terpene cyclases. a) Tail-to-head class I germacrene A (13) cyclase. b) Head-to-tail type II brasilicardin (14) cyclase. c) Type II ent-copalyl diphosphate (15) synthase and type I ent

• -kaurene (16) cyclase. Functional TC characterization. a) Different terpenes were produced when hedycaryol (18) synthase and epi-cubebol (20) synthase were expressed in E. coli vs incubated with FPP (9) in vitro. b) Engineering the isoprenoid flux increases the titer of terpene production. Selected

Volatiles from three genome sequenced fungi from the genus Aspergillus

• Jeroen S. Dickschat,
• Ersin Celik and
• Nelson L. Brock

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2018, 14, 900–910, doi:10.3762/bjoc.14.77

• ). A phylogenetic analysis of 878 fungal terpene synthase homologs (Figure S1 in Supporting Information File 1) demonstrates that this enzyme is closely related to the bifunctional ent-copalyl diphosphate synthase/ent-kaurene synthase from Fusarium fujikuroi [33]. The N-terminal domain shows the DXDD

• TS homologs (accession numbers GAA83682, GAA88217 and GAA91251, locus tags AKAW_01797, AKAW_06331 and AKAW_09365). The first enzyme GAA83682 shows close homology to the bifunctional ent-kaurene synthases from Fusarium and is likely involved in diterpene biosynthesis. The fact that no corresponding

Volatiles from the tropical ascomycete Daldinia clavata (Hypoxylaceae, Xylariales)

• Tao Wang,
• Kathrin I. Mohr,
• Marc Stadler and
• Jeroen S. Dickschat

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2018, 14, 135–147, doi:10.3762/bjoc.14.9

• roqueforti [7][8][9], trichodiene (4) is the parent hydrocarbon of the trichothecene family of mycotoxins in various Trichothecium and Fusarium strains [10], and the diterpene ent-kaurene (5) is the precursor of gibberellins, a class of plant hormones that are produced in large amounts by the rice pathogen

Opportunities and challenges for the sustainable production of structurally complex diterpenoids in recombinant microbial systems

• Katarina Kemper,
• Max Hirte,
• Markus Reinbold,
• Monika Fuchs and
• Thomas Brück

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2017, 13, 845–854, doi:10.3762/bjoc.13.85

• the endogenous MEP pathway (dxs, idi, ispD, ispF, Scheme 1) together with GGPP-synthase (GGPPS) and taxadiene-synthase (TXS) from Taxus brevifolia [28]. Elevation of product titers of the important diterpene intermediate ent-kaurene (precursor for the gibberellin biosynthesis [84]) was reported from

• Kong et al. [29]. Their strategy involved overexpression of the MEP-Elements dxs, idi and ispA (see Scheme 1) in an engineered E.coli strain co-expressing recombinant ent-copalyl diphosphate synthase (CPPS) and ent-kaurene synthase (KS) from Stevia rebaudiana as well as a GGPPS from Rhodobacter

• production of ent-kaurene reported by Kong et al. [29]; HMGR = hydroxymethylglutaryl(HMG)-CoA-reductase; dxs = 1-deoxy-D-xylulose-5-phosphate synthase; dxr = 1-deoxy-D-xylulose-5-phosphate reductoisomerase; ispD = 2-C-methyl-D-erythritol(ME)-4-phosphate cytidylyltransferase; ispE = 4-(cyt-5’-diphospho)-ME