Reversible Sugar Transfer by Glycosyltransferases as a Tool for Natural Product (Bio)synthesis

摘要

Since the beginning of medicine, sugars have played an important role. Without the sugar cube, the eradication of polio in Europe and the US would have been much more difficult as it made the oral vaccination procedure easier, especially for children. However, the vaccine would have done the job without the sugar, which is not true for most glycosylated natural products: Many of these clinically used bioactive compounds or their semisynthetic derivatives represent glycosylated polyketides, non-ribosomally made peptides, or terpenoids, which often show as severely a reduced activity (if any) as aglycons., As the attached sugar moieties often strongly influence the compound's specificity, substrate binding, and pharmacology, there is a strong interest to deliberately change and diversify natural product glycosylation patterns.