Researchers capture clear images of complex cancer drug building enzyme - News-Medical
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A joint research group led by Ryo Tanifuji and Hiroki Oguri from the University of Tokyo and Yoshikazu Tanaka from Tohoku University has successfully visualized SacC, an enzyme that plays a key role in building the complex five-ring core of safracin B. This core structure is shared with trabectedin, a drug used to treat soft tissue sarcoma. While getting a clear picture of the enzyme in its working state is a remarkable achievement in and of itself, the method pioneered during the project might have the widest reach. With its potential applicability to a broad range of related enzymes that produce medically useful compounds, the approach could open new avenues for research into not only optimizing already existing compounds but also creating new ones. The findings were published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society (JACS).
The production line for the drug trabectedin starts with the bacterial compound safracin B, which the enzyme SacC assembles within the bacteria. The enzyme carries out a remarkable, seven-step catalytic cascade, stitching together two new carbon-to-carbon bonds and producing a five-ring core scaffold in a single pass.
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