Nitrososynthase-triggered oxidative carbon-carbon bond cleavage in baumycin biosynthesis

Baumycins are coproduced with the clinically important anticancer secondary metabolites daunorubicin and doxorubicin, which are glycosylated anthracyclines isolated from Streptomyces peucetius. The distinguishing feature of baumycins is the presence of an unusual acetal moiety appended to daunosamine, which is hydrolyzed during acidic extraction of daunorubicin from fermentation broth. The structure of the baumycin acetal suggests that it is likely derived from an unknown C3″-methyl deoxysugar cleaved between the C3″ and C4″ positions. This is supported by analysis of the baumycin/daunorubicin biosynthetic gene cluster (dox), which also encodes putative proteins consistent with production of an anthracycline dissacharide containing a branched sugar. Notably, the dnmZ gene in the dox gene cluster possesses high translated sequence similarity to nitrososynthases, which are flavin-dependent amine monooxygenases involved in the four-electron oxidation of amino sugars to nitroso sugars. Herein we demonstrate that DnmZ is an amino sugar nitrososynthase that initiates the conversion of thymidine-5'-diphosphate-l-epi-vancosamine to a ring-opened product via a previously uncharacterized retro oxime-aldol reaction.