Cytotoxic Pheofungins from an Engineered Fungus Impaired In Posttranslatlonal Protein Modification

摘要

Fungi produce a multitude of natural products that have a major impact on ecology, agriculture, and health. While traditional natural product discovery has provided a vast array of chemically and functionally diverse compounds, it appears that most of the biosynthetic potential is still hidden and has thus been overlooked. Indeed, analyses of fully sequenced fungal genomes revealed that the number of encoded biosynthetic pathways by far exceeds the range of metabolites observed under standardized cultivation in the laboratory. The reason for this observation is that most biosynthesis genes remain silent, and a major challenge is to explore ways to activate these cryptic pathways.