Identification of Natural-Product Inhibitors of the 2C‑Methyl‑d‑erythritol 4‑Phosphate Pathway

To tackle the emerging resistance against existing antibiotics, we screened natural-product (NP) libraries against two underexploited target enzymes from the 2C-methyl-d-erythritol 4-phosphate (MEP) pathway, namely, Mycobacterium tuberculosis DXPS and Escherichia coli IspD. We have chosen these two enzymes due to the availability of the crystal structures that helped to elucidate the putative binding modes of the NPs identified. The screening of a NP collection led to the discovery of myxobacteria-derived maracen A and Streptomyces-derived polyketomycin as the first NPs targeting these enzymes.