Biosynthesis Polyketides and Vitamins [Paperback]

Concerned with discovering the chemical pathways of biosynthesis, this book devotes four chapters to the use of isotopes in biosynthetic research and the biosynthesis of enzyme cofactors and vitamin B12 and of reduced polyketides such as erythromycin. The topics covered demonstrate the revolution that has occurred in biosynthetic studies with the advent of gene cloning and overexpression. Yet the book also shows that the more classical approach to biosynthetic studies must go hand in hand with these new techniques.The present volume is the first of two planned to provide state-of-the-art expert reviews of central topics in modern natural products chemistry and secondary metabolism. Many scientists not directly involved in these areas still view the field of natural products as focused primarily on the isolation,structure elucidation, and cataloging of new compounds (i. e. grind and find),or on their chemical synthesis. However,two revolutions in experimental techniques since the early 1950s have completely transformed the understanding of chemical and biological relationships between highly diverse natural products. The first was the use isotopes to label precursors and follow the fate of key atoms during biochemical transformations to a final product. Advances in methodology that began in the mid-1970s,especially using NMR to detect stable isotopes,dramatically expanded the level of mechanistic detail available to study in vivo conversions of secondary metabolites. The second revolution started in the late 1980s as researchers developed methods to identify,purify and genetically manipulate individual enzymes - sponsible for the intricate steps leading to complex natural products. This has expanded the field from building an encyclopaedia of natural materials to being able to initiate control of biochemical pathways to secondary metabolites. Recent advances suggest it may soon be possible to rationally manipulate biochemical pathways in vivo to rapidly produce l;