Chemists at Scripps Research have efficiently created three families of complex, oxygen-containing molecules that are normally obtainable only from plants.
These molecules, called terpenes, are potential starting points for new drugs and other high-value products—marking an important development for multiple industries. In addition, the new approach could allow chemists to build many other classes of compounds.
The chemistry feat is detailed in the Aug. 13 edition of the journal Science.
The key to this new method of making molecules is the harnessing, or hijacking, of natural enzymes—from bacteria, in this case—to assist in complex chemical transformations that have been impractical or impossible with synthetic chemistry techniques alone, says principal investigator Hans Renata, Ph.D., an assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry at Scripps Research.
Natural enzymes that help build molecules in cells usually perform only one or two highly specific tasks. But the Scripps Research team showed that natural enzymes, even without modification, can be made to perform a wider range of tasks.
"We think that in general, enzymes are a mostly untapped resource for solving problems in chemical synthesis," Renata says. "Enzymes tend to have some degree of promiscuous activity, in terms of their ability to spur chemical reactions beyond their primary task, and we were able to take advantage of that here."
