Tag: bldA

Nucleocidin: lost in 1956, found in 2015.

September 26, 2015

Nucleocidin is a rare example of a natural product containing fluorine. Only six structurally distinct examples of fluorinated natural products are known!  (Fun fact: nucleocidin contains an equally rare sulfamate group, shown in red). As a fluorinated analog of adenosine, nucleocidin belongs to a very valuable and pharmaceutically useful category of molecules known as fluorosugars. Such … More Nucleocidin: lost in 1956, found in 2015.

Unlocking cryptic genes with a tRNA molecule

September 23, 2015

The majority of biosynthetic genes are not expressed in a given Streptomcyes strain, which can thwart the discovery of the encoded molecule. There are many factors that can cause such genes to be in a ‘cryptic’ state. We hypothesized that TTA codons, which tend to concentrate in biosynthetic genes, might be one such factor. In collaboration with the … More Unlocking cryptic genes with a tRNA molecule

Old but memorable news from our previous website.

September 21, 2015

Jacqueline Séguin defends her MSc thesis! 20/08/15. Another student moves on to bigger and better things. Jacqueline successfully defended her MSc thesis entitled “Mechanistic Analysis of the Organophosphonate-Degrading Enzymes PhnY and PhnZ”. Well done Jacqueline! DLZ attends ACS meeting in Boston 17/08/15. DLZ flew down to Boston to give a seminar in the ACS symposium held in celebration of Frank Raushel receiving … More Old but memorable news from our previous website.