Lantibiotics are post-translationally modified peptide antibiotics. Nisin, its best known member, has been used for decades in the food industry without significant development of resistance. Other lantibiotics are under investigation or in clinical trials for the treatment of cystic fibrosis and asthma, the elimination of tooth-decay causing bacteria, and for the treatment of multi-drug resistant bacteria. In this grant application we seek to extend our past success towards the use of the biosynthetic machinery to make analogs and to better understand their mechanism of substrate recognition and catalysis. Our goals are: 1. Understand the enzymes involved in crosslink formation 2. Engineer efficient processes to manipulate the structures of posttranslationally modified peptide natural products 3. Investigate new posttranslationally modified peptide natural products.
Numerous reports of multi-drug resistant bacterial strains have appeared in recent years, with several strains posing the serious threat of becoming immune against all commercially available antibiotics. It is evident that in order to prevent potential epidemic outbreaks of infectious diseases, a renewed focus on antibiotic research is highly desired. The group of posttranslationally modified peptide antibiotics has much promise as a new line of defense against pathogenic bacteria and many members are under evaluation for human applications. Currently, no methods exist for in depth medicinal chemistry on these compounds to improve their pharmacological properties. This research program seeks to improve technology that will allow doing this by relying on the biosynthetic machinery. Furthermore, we propose studies to better understand the enzymes involved in crosslink formation in this grant application. Additionally, we will extend our work to new promising compounds and will investigate the use of the lantibiotic enzymes for applications other than lantibiotic engineering.
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