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A chemocentric view of the natural product inventory

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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Correspondence to 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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