CHEMICAL BIOLOGY : Natural products in a flask

Despite their complicated chemical structures, some potential drug leads can be created by mixing together enzymes in a flask.Chemicals that occur naturally, such as penicillin, have traditionally been very important sources of drugs. These ‘natural products’ often have very elaborate chemical structures that make them difficult to create by chemical synthesis.
Groups led by Bradley Moore and Christopher Walsh now independently show that two complex natural products, which have potential antibacterial and antitumour activity, can be made by taking the enzymes that normally create these chemicals inside cells and mixing them together outside of a cell. These studies have provided new insight into how these natural products are made and will help further efforts to turn these chemicals into drugs.

Author contacts:
Bradley Moore (University of California, San Diego, CA, USA) Author paper [1]
Tel: +1 858 822 6650; E-mail: bsmoore@ucsd.edu

Christopher Walsh (Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA) Author paper [2]
Tel: +1 617 432 1715; E-mail: christopher_walsh@hms.harvard.edu