Structural Biology and Chemistry of the Terpenoid Cyclases

Terpenoid cyclases catalyze the most complex chemical reactions occurring in nature and generate a unique hydrocarbon product with remarkable structural and stereochemical precision. Given its prominence as the archetypical prenyltransferase, and given the prominent structural and functional homologies between the prenyltransferases and terpenoid cyclases, farnesyl diphosphate synthase provides a suitable introduction and foundation for understanding terpenoid cyclase structure and mechanism.