Polyketides are a structurally and functionally diverse family of bioactive natural products that are the basis of, or inspiration for, many of our most important pharmaceuticals and agrochemicals.

Industrial-scale production of polyketides relies on chemical extraction from plant or microbial biomass, or organic synthesis. Frequently, these are expensive and time-consuming processes, which yield multiple undesirable toxic byproducts. There is significant global interest in developing simple scalable routes to the production of polyketides via reconstitution of their biosynthetic pathways in the bacterium E. coli.

In this project the research team will use a combination of microbial genetics, molecular biology, protein engineering, and multi-scale modeling, to establish a cost effective E. coli-based platform technology for the production of industrially relevant polyketides.‌

Project lead: Dr Paul Race (protein/metabolic engineering and structural biology)

Project Team: Dr Andy Bailey (molecular biology); Dr Steven Burston (enzymology and protein folding); Professor Matt Crump (NMR spectroscopy/analytical chemistry); Dr Lucia Marucci (multivariate and systems analysis); Professor Adrian Mulholland (molecular modelling); Professor Nigel Savery (transcription regulation and synthetic promoters); Professor Tom Simpson (bioorganic chemistry) and Professor Chris Willis (organic synthesis)