Synthesis of unnatural alkaloid scaffolds by exploiting plant polyketide synthase

HsPKS1 from Huperzia serrata is a type III polyketide synthase (PKS) with remarkable substrate tolerance and catalytic potential. Here we present the synthesis of unnatural unique polyketide-alkaloid hybrid molecules by exploiting the enzyme reaction using precursor-directed and structure-based approaches. HsPKS1 produced novel pyridoisoindole (or benzopyridoisoindole) with the 6.5.6-fused (or 6.6.5.6-fused) ring system by the condensation of 2-carbamoylbenzoyl-CoA (or 3-carbamoyl-2-naphthoyl-CoA), a synthetic nitrogen-containing nonphysiological starter substrate, with two molecules of malonyl-CoA. The structure-based S348G mutant not only extended the product chain length but also altered the cyclization mechanism to produce a biologically active, ring-expanded 6.7.6-fused dibenzoazepine, by the condensation of 2-carbamoylbenzoyl-CoA with three malonyl-CoAs. Thus, the basic nitrogen atom and the structure-based mutagenesis enabled additional C─C and C─N bond formation to generate the novel polyketide-alkaloid scaffold.