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Terrequinone A biosynthesis through L-tryptophan oxidation, dimerization and bisprenylation

Nature Chemical Biology volume 3, pages 584–592 (2007)Cite this article

Abstract

The antitumor fungal metabolite terrequinone A, identified in extracts of Aspergillus sp., is biosynthesized by the five-gene cluster tdiA–tdiE. In this work, we have overproduced all five proteins (TdiA–TdiE) in the bacterial host Escherichia coli, fully reconstituting the biosynthesis of terrequinone A. This pathway involves aminotransferase activity, head-to-tail dimerization and bisprenylation of the scaffold to yield the benzoquinone natural product. We have established that TdiD is a pyridoxal-5′-phosphate–dependent L-tryptophan aminotransferase that generates indolepyruvate for an unusual nonoxidative coupling by the tridomain nonribosomal peptide synthetase TdiA. TdiC, an NADH-dependent quinone reductase, generates the nucleophilic hydroquinone for two distinct rounds of prenylation by the single prenyltransferase TdiB. TdiE is required to shunt the benzoquinone away from an off-pathway monoprenylated species by an as yet unknown mechanism. Overall, we have biochemically characterized the complete biosynthetic pathway to terrequinone A, highlighting the nonoxidative dimerization pathway and the unique asymmetric prenylation involved in its maturation.

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Figure 1: Structures of representative asterriquinones.
Figure 2: Formation of IPA from L-tryptophan by TdiD.
Figure 3: Characterization of TdiA.
Figure 4: Characterization of TdiB/TdiC/TdiE trienzyme system.
Figure 5: Turnover of intermediates on route to terrequinone A.
Figure 6: Biochemically characterized natural products derived from L-tryptophan dimerization.

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Acknowledgements

We gratefully acknowledge the National Institutes of Health grant GM 20011 (to C.T.W.) and a Department of Defense National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship (to C.J.B.). We thank P.D. Straight for discussions and for providing a sample of A. nidulans strain A4, and we thank J.A. Read for his critical reading of this manuscript.

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  1. Carl J Balibar and Annaleise R Howard-Jones: These authors contributed equally to this work.

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  1. Department of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology, Harvard Medical School, 240 Longwood Ave., Boston, 02115, Massachusetts, USA

    Carl J Balibar, Annaleise R Howard-Jones & Christopher T Walsh

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C.J.B. and A.R.H.-J. contributed equally to this work.

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Correspondence to Christopher T Walsh.

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Balibar, C., Howard-Jones, A. & Walsh, C. Terrequinone A biosynthesis through L-tryptophan oxidation, dimerization and bisprenylation. Nat Chem Biol 3, 584–592 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1038/nchembio.2007.20

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