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Discovery and characterization of a novel C-terminal peptide carboxyl methyltransferase in a lassomycin-like lasso peptide biosynthetic pathway

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Abstract

Lasso peptides belong to a peculiar family of ribosomally synthesized and post-translationally modified peptides (RiPPs)—natural products with an unusual isopeptide-bonded slipknot structure. Except for assembling of this unusual lasso fold, several further post-translational modifications of lasso peptides, including C-terminal methylation, phosphorylation/poly-phosphorylation, citrullination, and acetylation, have been reported recently. However, most of their biosynthetic logic have not been elucidated except the phosphorylated paeninodin lasso peptide. Herein, we identified two novel lassomycin-like lasso peptide biosynthetic pathways and, for the first time, characterized a novel C-terminal peptide carboxyl methyltransferase involved in these pathways. Our investigations revealed that this new family of methyltransferase could specifically methylate the C terminus of precursor peptide substrates, eventually leading to lassomycin-like C-terminal methylated lasso peptides. Our studies offer another rare insight into the extraordinary strategies of chemical diversification adopted by lasso peptide biosynthetic machinery and predicated two valuable sources for methylated lasso peptide discovery.

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Funding

This work was supported by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (No. XK1802-8 and XK1803-06), National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC, Grant No. 21706005), and National Great Science and Technology Projects (2018ZX09721001).

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Correspondence to Guojun Zheng or Shaozhou Zhu.

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Su, Y., Han, M., Meng, X. et al. Discovery and characterization of a novel C-terminal peptide carboxyl methyltransferase in a lassomycin-like lasso peptide biosynthetic pathway. Appl Microbiol Biotechnol 103, 2649–2664 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-019-09645-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-019-09645-x

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