New strategies are urgently required to develop antibiotics. The siderophore uptake system has attracted considerable attention, but rational design of siderophore antibiotic conjugates requires knowledge of recognition by the cognate outer-membrane transporter. Acinetobacter baumannii is a serious pathogen, which utilizes (pre)acinetobactin to scavenge iron from the host. We report the structure of the (pre)acinetobactin transporter BauA bound to the siderophore, identifying the structural determinants of recognition. Detailed biophysical analysis confirms that BauA recognises preacinetobactin. We show that acinetobactin is not recognised by the protein, thus preacinetobactin is essential for iron uptake. The structure shows and NMR confirms that under physiological conditions, a molecule of acinetobactin will bind to two free coordination sites on the iron preacinetobactin complex. The ability to recognise a heterotrimeric iron-preacinetobactin-acinetobactin complex may rationalize contradictory reports in the literature. These results open new avenues for the design of novel antibiotic conjugates (trojan horse) antibiotics.

Bacterial infections of agriculturally important mushrooms and plants pose a major threat to human food sources worldwide. However, structures of chemical mediators required by the pathogen for host colonization and infection remain elusive in most cases. Here, we report two types of threonine-tagged lipopeptides conserved among mushroom and rice pathogenic Burkholderia species that facilitate bacterial infection of hosts. Genome mining, metabolic profiling of infected mushrooms, and heterologous expression of orphan gene clusters allowed the discovery of these unprecedented metabolites in the mushroom pathogen Burkholderia gladioli (haereogladin, burriogladin) and the plant pathogen Burkholderia glumae (haereoglumin and burrioglumin). Through targeted gene deletions, the molecular basis of lipopeptide biosynthesis by nonribosomal peptide synthetases was revealed. Surprisingly, both types of lipopeptides feature unusual threonine tags, which yield longer peptide backbones than one would expect based on the canonical colinearity of the NRPS assembly lines. Both peptides play an indirect role in host infection as biosurfactants that enable host colonization by mediating swarming and biofilm formation abilities. Moreover, MALDI imaging mass spectrometry was applied to investigate the biological role of the lipopeptides. Our results shed light on conserved mechanisms that mushroom and plant pathogenic bacteria utilize for host infection and expand current knowledge on bacterial virulence factors that may represent a new starting point for the targeted development of crop protection measures in the future.

Cyclic ribosomally derived peptides possess diverse bioactivities and are currently of major interest in drug development. However, it can be chemically challenging to synthesize these molecules, hindering the diversification and testing of cyclic peptide leads. Enzymes used in vitro offer a solution to this; however peptide macrocyclization remains the bottleneck. PCY1, involved in the biosynthesis of plant orbitides, belongs to the class of prolyl oligopeptidases and natively displays substrate promiscuity. PCY1 is a promising candidate for in vitro utilization, but its substrates require an 11 to 16 residue C-terminal recognition tail. We have characterized PCY1 both kinetically and structurally with multiple substrate complexes revealing the molecular basis of recognition and catalysis. Using these insights, we have identified a three residue C-terminal extension that replaces the natural recognition tail permitting PCY1 to operate on synthetic substrates. We demonstrate that PCY1 can macrocyclize a variety of substrates with this short tail, including unnatural amino acids and nonamino acids, highlighting PCY1's potential in biocatalysis.

The rise of antimicrobial resistance poses a severe threat to public health. The natural product chlorotonil was identified as a new antibiotic targeting multidrug resistant Gram‐positive pathogens and Plasmodium falciparum. Although chlorotonil shows promising activities, the scaffold is highly lipophilic and displays potential biological instabilities. Therefore, we strived towards improving its pharmaceutical properties by semisynthesis. We demonstrated stereoselective epoxidation of chlorotonils and epoxide ring opening in moderate to good yields providing derivatives with significantly enhanced solubility. Furthermore, in vivo stability of the derivatives was improved while retaining their nanomolar activity against critical human pathogens (e.g. methicillin‐resistant Staphylococcus aureus and P. falciparum). Intriguingly, we showed further superb activity for the frontrunner molecule in a mouse model of S. aureus infection.

The macrocyclization of linear peptides is very often accompanied by significant improvements in their stability and biological activity. Many strategies are available for their chemical macrocyclization, however, enzyme‐mediated methods remain of great interest in terms of synthetic utility. To date, known macrocyclization enzymes have been shown to be active on both peptide and protein substrates. Here we show that the macrocyclization enzyme of the cyanobactin family, PatGmac, is capable of macrocyclizing substrates with one, two, or three 1,4‐substituted 1,2,3‐triazole moieties. The introduction of non‐peptidic scaffolds into macrocycles is highly desirable in tuning the activity and physical properties of peptidic macrocycles. We have isolated and fully characterized nine non‐natural triazole‐containing cyclic peptides, a further ten molecules are also synthesized. PatGmac has now been shown to be an effective and versatile tool for the ring closure by peptide bond formation.

The kinetic target-guided synthesis (KTGS) strategy is an unconventional discovery approach that takes advantage of the presence of the biological target itself in order to irreversibly assemble the best inhibitors from an array of building blocks. This strategy has grown over the last two decades notably after the introduction of the in situ click chemistry concept by Sharpless and colleagues in the early 2000s based on the use of the Huisgen cycloaddition between terminal alkynes and azides. KTGS is a captivating area of research offering an unprecedented and powerful strategy to probe the macromolecular complexity and dynamics of biological targets. After a brief introduction listing all chemical ligation reactions reported to date in KTGS, this review focuses on the last five years' progress to expand the repertoire of the click or "click-like" tool box targeting proteins, as well as to overcome limitations arising in particular from false negatives, i.e. potent ligands that are not formed, or formed in undetectable trace amounts. Furthermore, we wish to analyze the new twists and novelties described in some of these applications in order to better understand the conditions that govern this strategy and the extent to which it can be developed and generalized for a more efficient process.

Natural products comprise a diverse array of molecules, many of which are biologically active. Most natural products are derived from combinations of polyketides, peptides, sugars, and fatty‐acid building blocks. Peptidic macrocycles have attracted attention as potential therapeutics possessing cell permeability, stability, and easy‐to‐control variability. Here, we show that enzymes from the patellamide biosynthetic pathway can be harnessed to make macrocycles that are hybrids of amino acids and a variety of manmade chemical building blocks, including aryl rings, polyethers, and alkyl chains. We have made macrocycles with only three amino acids, one of which can be converted to a thiazoline or a thiazole ring. We report the synthesis of 18 peptide hybrid macrocycles, nine of which have been isolated and fully characterized.

Macrocyclisation of fully non-peptidic compounds and non-heterocycle containing macrocycles using the peptidic ligase PatGmac.