Aliphatic Ether Bond Formation Expands the Scope of Radical SAM Enzymes in Natural Product Biosynthesis. Author Kenzie Clark, Leah Bushin, Mohammad Seyedsayamdost Publication Year 2019 Type Journal Article Abstract The biosynthetic pathways of microbial natural products provide a rich source of novel enzyme-catalyzed transformations. Using a new bioinformatic search strategy, we recently identified an abundance of gene clusters for ribosomally synthesized and post-translationally modified peptides (RiPPs) that contain at least one radical -adenosylmethionine (RaS) metalloenzyme and are regulated by quorum sensing. In the present study, we characterize a RaS enzyme from one such RiPP gene cluster and find that it installs an aliphatic ether cross-link at an unactivated carbon center, linking the oxygen of a Thr side chain to the α-carbon of a Gln residue. This reaction marks the first ether cross-link installed by a RaS enzyme. Additionally, it leads to a new heterocyclization motif and underlines the utility of our bioinformatics approach in finding new families of RiPP modifications. Keywords Animals, Bacterial Proteins, Computational Biology, S-Adenosylmethionine, Amino Acid Sequence, Protein Processing, Post-Translational, Biological Products, Peptides, Ribosomes, Biosynthetic Pathways, Swine, Streptococcus suis, Ethers, Streptococcal Infections Journal J Am Chem Soc Volume 141 Issue 27 Pages 10610-10615 Date Published 2019 Jul 10 ISSN Number 1520-5126 DOI 10.1021/jacs.9b05151 Alternate Journal J Am Chem Soc PMID 31246011 PubMedGoogle ScholarBibTeXEndNote X3 XML