Learning from nature: Biosynthesis of cyanobacterin opens up new class of natural compounds for applications in medicine and agriculture

Researchers have succeeded in understanding the biosynthetic mechanisms for the production of the natural product cyanobacterin, which is produced in small quantities by the cyanobacteria Scytonema hofmanni. In the process, they also discovered a new class of enzymes for building carbon-carbon bonds. The (bio)chemists are thus significantly expanding the biocatalytic repertoire currently known from Nature and are opening up new, sustainable biotechnological applications in medicine and agriculture.