Studies on biosynthetic enzymes leading to structural and functional diversity of microbial natural products

The primary metabolic pathways, for the most part, have been disclosed in Escherichia coli and Saccharomyces cerevisiae. These pathways were believed to be common among all microorganisms. However, after discovery of an alternative pathway for biosynthesis of isopentenyl diphosphate, the methylerythritol phosphate pathway, genome mining of alternative biosynthetic pathways for primary metabolites has been performed. My collaborators and I focused on the biosynthetic pathways of menaquinone and peptidoglycan because some microorganisms lack ortholog genes of the known biosynthetic pathways for these compounds. I also studied biosynthetic enzymes for secondary metabolites produced by actinomycetes and fungi because they include many unique enzymes. In this review, outlines of these studies are described.