Recent Advances In Acyltransferase Domain Of Type I Polyktide Synthases

Most polyketide natural compounds, such as antibiotics, antineoplastics and immunosuppressants, are produced by type I polyketide synthases (PKSs). Type I PKSs are composed of several catalytic modules, each of which contains iterative domains, such as acyltransferase (AT) domain, for one round of polyketide chain elongation. The recent advances on AT domains of type I PKS modules and analyzes their categories, the diverse acyl subunits they transfer, their catalytic mechanisms and their protein structures are summarized. Moreover, the recent progress in AT engineering (AT domains swaps, AT site-directed mutagenesis and trans-AT complementation) for new polyketide derivatives is summarized, to show that the substrate specificity of AT domains is one of the key factors on determining the diversity of polyketide backbones. These works have laid a theoretical foundation for the further development of novel polyketides with multi-functions and in high-yields by AT domain engineering.