Natural products at Nature Chemical Biology
The current issue of Nature Chemical Biology is centered on natural products, with an emphasis on terpenes. I found the following articles most interesting:
- One pathway, many products, by M.A. Fischbach & J. Clardy [Nat. Chem. Biol. (2007) 3, 353-355]. Primary metabolic pathways make single products, while secondary pathways generally make a variety of products, not just one. Why?
- The function of terpene natural products in the natural world, by J. Gershenzon & N. Dudareva [Nat. Chem. Biol. (2007) 3, 408-414]. Terpenes are the largest class of natural products, and we are just beginning to understand the biological roles of a few of them.
- Mining and engineering natural-product biosynthetic pathways, by B. Wilkinson & J. Micklefield [Nat. Chem. Biol. (2007) 3, 379-386]. With the purpose of developing new therapeutic agents, recent advances in the field come from improved screening technologies, genome mining, expression of entire biosynthetic gene clusters in suitable hosts, gene synthesis, or directed evolution of enzymes.
- Plant endophytes as a platform for discovery-based undergraduate science education, by S.A. Strobel & G.A. Strobel [Nat. Chem. Biol. (2007) 3, 356-359]. Imaginative education projects have the potential to yield, as a bonus, direct scientific results. Superb.
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