Radical-mediated enzymatic carbon chain fragmentation-recombination

Qi Zhang, Yuxue Li, Dandan Chen, Yi Yu, Lian Duan, Ben Shen & Wen Liu

Published online: 16 January 2011 | doi:10.1038/nchembio.512

Radical SAM enzymes are famous for catalyzing chemically diverse reactions. A mechanistic investigation of NosL, responsible for functionalizing the indole precursor of nosiheptide, now shows that this enzyme catalyzes an unusual fragmentation-recombination reaction that is tolerant to non-natural halogen substitutents.