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Letter

Nature Chemical Biology 3, 657–662 (1 October 2007) | doi:10.1038/nchembio.2007.28

Expanding the promiscuity of a natural-product glycosyltransferase by directed evolution

Gavin J Williams , Changsheng Zhang & Jon S Thorson

Natural products, many of which are decorated with essential sugar residues, continue to serve as a key platform for drug development. Adding or changing sugars attached to such natural products can improve the parent compound's pharmacological properties, specificity at multiple levels, and/or even the molecular mechanism of action.