Understanding the early stages of peptide formation during the biosynthesis of teicoplanin and related glycopeptide antibiotics

The biosynthesis of the glycopeptide antibiotics (GPAs) demonstrates the exceptional ability of nonribosomal peptide (NRP) synthesis to generate diverse and complex structures from an expanded array of amino acid precursors. Whilst the heptapeptide cores of GPAs share a conserved C terminus, including the aromatic residues involved cross‐linking and that are essential for the antibiotic activity of GPAs, most structural diversity is found within the N terminus of the peptide. Furthermore, the origin of the (D)‐stereochemistry of residue 1 of all GPAs is currently unclear, despite its importance for antibiotic activity. Given these important features, we have now reconstituted modules (M) 1–4 of the NRP synthetase (NRPS) assembly lines that synthesise the clinically relevant type IV GPA teicoplanin and the related compound A40926. Our results show that important roles in amino acid modification during the NRPS‐mediated biosynthesis of GPAs can be ascribed to the actions of condensation domains present within these modules, including the incorporation of (D)‐amino acids at position 1 of the peptide. Our results also indicate that hybrid NRPS assembly lines can be generated in a facile manner by mixing NRPS proteins from different systems and that uncoupling of peptide formation due to different rates of activity seen for NRPS modules can be controlled by varying the ratio of NRPS modules. Taken together, this indicates that NRPS assembly lines function as dynamic peptide assembly lines and not static megaenzyme complexes, which has significant implications for biosynthetic redesign of these important biosynthetic systems. Reconstitution of the first four modules of the nonribosomal peptide synthetase machinery that biosynthesises clinically relevant glycopeptide antibiotics has revealed that these are dynamic megaenzyme complexes, from which hybrid assembly lines can be generated simply by mixing modules from different biosynthetic systems. Furthermore, epimerisation of the first residue in these peptide antibiotics unexpectedly occurs during peptide bond formation.