Title:Harnessing the Natural Pool of Polyketide and Non-ribosomal Peptide
Family: A Route Map towards Novel Drug Development
Volume: 15
Author(s): Aiswarya Girija, Mallika Vijayanathan*, Sweda Sreekumar , Jasim Basheer , Tara G. Menon, Radhakrishnan E. Krishnankutty and Eppurathu V. Soniya*
Affiliation:
- Department of Transdisciplinary Biology, Rajiv Gandhi Centre for Biotechnology (RGCB), Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala,
India
- Biology Centre - Institute of Plant Molecular Biology, Czech Academy of Sciences, České Budějovice, 370 05, Czech
Republic
- Department of Transdisciplinary Biology, Rajiv Gandhi Centre for Biotechnology (RGCB), Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala,
India
Keywords:
Polyketides, NRPS, secondary metabolites, natural products, bioactive molecules.
Abstract: The emergence of communicable and non-communicable diseases has posed a health
challenge for millions of people worldwide and is a major threat to the economic and social development
in the coming century. The occurrence of the recent pandemic, SARS-CoV-2, caused by
lethal severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2, is one such example. Rapid research and development
of drugs for the treatment and management of these diseases have become an incredibly
challenging task for the pharmaceutical industry. Although, substantial attention has been paid to
the discovery of therapeutic compounds from natural sources having significant medicinal potential,
their synthesis has made a slow progress. Hence, the discovery of new targets by the application
of the latest biotechnological and synthetic biology approaches is very much the need of the
hour. Polyketides (PKs) and non-ribosomal peptides (NRPs) found in bacteria, fungi and plants are
a diverse family of natural products synthesized by two classes of enzymes: polyketide synthases
(PKS) and non-ribosomal peptide synthetases (NRPS). These enzymes possess immense biomedical
potential due to their simple architecture, catalytic capacity, as well as diversity. With the advent
of the latest in-silico and in-vitro strategies, these enzymes and their related metabolic pathways,
if targeted, can contribute highly towards the biosynthesis of an array of potentially natural
drug leads that have antagonist effects on biopolymers associated with various human diseases. In
the face of the rising threat from multidrug-resistant pathogens, this will further open new avenues
for the discovery of novel and improved drugs by combining natural and synthetic approaches.
This review discusses the relevance of polyketides and non-ribosomal peptides and the improvement
strategies for the development of their derivatives and scaffolds, and how they will be beneficial
for future bioprospecting and drug discovery.