Peptides are fundamental in life and are widely used as therapeutic agents; however, they are problematic to produce by chemical synthesis. The discovery of unusual biosynthetic pathways that produce peptide natural products reveals an alternative approach for peptide synthesis that uses ‘standalone’ ligase enzymes rather than multimodular enzymes.
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References
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This is a summary of: Xu, G. et al. Cryptic enzymatic assembly of peptides armed with β-lactone warheads. Nat. Chem. Biol. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41589-024-01657-7 (2024).
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Enzymatic synthesis of peptide therapeutics. Nat Chem Biol 20, 1256–1257 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41589-024-01658-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41589-024-01658-6