Targeted Genome Mining Reveals the Biosynthetic Gene Clusters of Natural Product CYP51 Inhibitors

Abstract

Lanosterol 14α-demethylase (CYP51) is an important target in the development of antifungal drugs. The fungal-derived restricticin <b>1</b> and related molecules are the only examples of natural products that inhibit CYP51. Here, using colocalizations of genes encoding self-resistant CYP51 as the query, we identified and validated the biosynthetic gene cluster (BGC) of <b>1</b>. Additional genome mining of related BGCs with CYP51 led to production of the related lanomycin <b>2</b>. The pathways for both <b>1</b> and <b>2</b> were identified from fungi not known to produce these compounds, highlighting the promise of the self-resistance enzyme (SRE) guided approach to bioactive natural product discovery.