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A chemocentric view of the natural product inventory

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As the identification of previously undetected microbial biosynthetic pathways burgeons, there arises the question of how much new chemistry is yet to be found. This, in turn, devolves to: what kinds of biosynthetic enzymatic transformations are yet to be characterized?

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Figure 1: Oxygenases catalyzing key chemical steps in biosynthetic pathways.
Figure 2: Enzymes catalyzing complex cyclizations.
Figure 3: Polycyclic fungal alkaloid biosynthetic pathways.
Figure 4: Hybrid assembly lines.
Figure 5: Nonribosomal peptides can be cyclized in several modes and can have high affinity and specificity towards protein targets.

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  1. Christopher T. Walsh is at the ChEM-H Institute, Stanford University, Stanford, California, USA.,

    Christopher T Walsh

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Walsh, C. A chemocentric view of the natural product inventory. Nat Chem Biol 11, 620–624 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/nchembio.1894

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