ETH researchers discover new class of natural products

Microbiology researchers working at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETH) have discovered a new class of natural products. These are ring-​shaped peptide molecules with a fatty acid appendage, also known as lipopeptides. The newly discovered synthetic pathway for peptide natural products offers huge potential for the development of novel antibiotics, further details of which can be found in a press release issued by ETH Zurich.

The researchers are able to modify the natural product blueprints in targeted fashion in just a few short steps in order to create the customized active ingredients, ETH Zurich writes in the press release. Moreover, their macro-​level genome analysis has identified a whole host of new enzyme candidates that could be combined with a peptide gene on a modular basis. To achieve this, the researchers made use of modern DNA sequencing methods and bioinformatics.

In the present study, which has been published in the specialist journal PNAS, the researchers have already described three enzymes that attach fatty acids of different chain lengths to a peptide. The next step will now focus on examining the biological impact of the new substance class.

“Initial experiments show that it is indeed possible to produce these customized lipopeptides in the lab”, comments Anna Vagstad, one of the lead authors of the study. “There’s often minimal financial incentive for pharmaceutical companies to develop new antibiotics, but we researchers can at least take the first step, which is to search for new active ingredients”, she adds.