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Biochemistry

Elusive source of sulfur unravelled

Nature volume 518, pages 45–46 (2015)Cite this article

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The metabolic origin of the sulfur atom in the naturally occurring antibiotic lincomycin A has been obscure — until now. The biosynthetic steps involved reveal surprising roles for two sulfur-containing metabolites. See Letter p.115

Deciphering the details of a complex biosynthetic pathway is, in some ways, like solving a jigsaw puzzle that has many more pieces than are needed to construct the correct picture. The molecular pieces (enzymes and their encoding genes, substrates and products) must often be carefully examined to solve the puzzle successfully (determine the correct biosynthetic pathway). Some interesting mechanisms for incorporating sulfur into molecules have been revealed in the past few years, including those involved in the biosynthesis of thiamine5 and the antibiotic BE-7585A (ref. 6).

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Figure 1: Biosynthesis of lincomycin A.

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  1. Charles E. Melançon III is in the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico 87131-0001, USA.,

    Charles E. Melançon III

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  1. Charles E. Melançon III
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Correspondence to Charles E. Melançon III.

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Melançon, C. Elusive source of sulfur unravelled. Nature 518, 45–46 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature14197

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