An Atlas of Nonribosomal Peptide Synthetases and Polyketide Synthases

This atlas of nonribosomal peptide and modular polyketide biosynthetic pathways demonstrates the widespread distribution of NRPS and modular PKS biosynthetic pathways across the three domains of life, by cataloging a total of 3,339 gene clusters from 2,699 complete genomes. Proteobacteria, Actinobacteria, Firmicutes and Cyanobacteria phyla in bacteria, and the Ascomycota phylum in fungi contained highest numbers of NRPS and PKS gene clusters and are likely to produce a wide variety of nonribosomal peptide and polyketide types of natural products. Our analysis shows that non-canonical nonmodular biosynthetic enzymes, which can form gene clusters that are structurally similar to type II PKSs, are common in bacteria. The data generated here provides a basis for the exploration of NRPS and PKS biosynthetic capacity and presents a compelling wealth of new information for natural product discovery.

Reference

Wang H, Fewer DP, Holm L, Rouhiainen L and Sivonen K. An atlas of nonribosomal peptide and modular polyketide biosynthetic pathways reveals common occurrence of nonmodular enzymes. Submitted manuscript.