Major breakthroughs have been made in the study of bio-catalysis

China Coatings Network
: Recently, liu Wen, a researcher at the National Key Laboratory of Life Organic Chemistry at the Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, led a team that, after 12 years of efforts, found two different enzymes in the biosynthetic synthesis of the antibiotics endoacetylate/endamide against infection, which can greatly promote the occurrence of the D-A cyclification reaction (Dies-Alder reaction, Diels-Alder reaction). The findings provide strong evidence to confirm the natural presence of D-A reactive enzymes. The results were published online March 3 in the journal Nature Chemical Biology.In the review of the
article, it is expected that the effective application of the synthesis strategy centered on the series of two enzyme catalytic reactions will greatly promote the development of diversity-oriented biological and chemical synthesis methods, and that the requirements for molecular structural diversity in pharmaceutical chemistry research and the preparation needs for specific molecular probes in chemical biology research can be met by establishing a molecular library of similar substances for corresponding natural products.
it is understood that D-A reactions in synthetic chemistry are common, but the presence of enzymes in nature that catalyz D-A reactions has been a key scientific issue debated and debated by biologists and chemists for many years.
As an extremely effective means of building carbon bonds, scientists have long predicted that the D-A reaction may be involved in the biosynthesis of a large number of natural products with cyclohetene units, and artificially created antibody or nucleases that catalyz simple D-A reactions, according to Liu Wen, the team leader. However, there are currently only 5 cases of natural enzyme proteins found in nature that promote the cyclic reaction of D-A. Moreover, the debate over whether they have catalytic functions in such transformations remains. The reason is that these enzymes either have a variety of functions, or the catalytic efficiency is very low, or the corresponding reaction does not require enzymes at all can be carried out spontaneously, making the relevant mechanism research particularly difficult, resulting in decades of people can not be sure whether the D-A reaction enzyme is natural. Liu Wen's team's recent findings create an opportunity to answer this scientific conundrum.
the fact that in nature, cycloacetylate/endamide antibiotics are produced from microorganisms of various sources, and the chemical structure of dozens of members of the family has been confirmed. These antibiotics have strong anti-infection, tumor suppression and other important biological activities, has long been a common focus of research in biology, pharmacy and chemistry. However, due to the complexity of the structure, chemical synthesis or modification often faces serious challenges in terms of yield and efficiency.
study by Liu Wen's team found that all members of cycloacetylacetic acid/endamide adopted a similar biosynthetic strategy, i.e., the rigid crosslinking of linear intermediates was completed by an enzymatic ring-addition reaction. The cyclic reactions of two different enzymes can be coupled or de-coupled, explaining how antibiotic molecules with similar core skeletons but different overall structures are created in nature.