Mycolactone E (M. liflandii from Sub-Saharan Africa)[6][7]
Mycolactone F (M. pseudoshottsii and M. marinum from around the world)[8][9]
Biosynthesis
Mycolactone consists of a 12-membered macrolide core with an ester-linked polyketide chain. Three plasmid-encoded polyketide synthase (PKS) enzymes are responsible for its production: MLSA 1 and MLSA 2 which generate the core, and MLSB is responsible for the synthesis of the polyketide chain. As shown in Figure 1, MLSB (1.2 MDa) contains seven consecutive extension modules and MLSA 1 (1.8 MDa) consists of eight. The remaining PKS enzyme, MLSA 2, contains the ninth module of MLSA.[10] The C-terminal domains of both MLSA2 and MLSB includes a thioesterase (TE) that was thought to catalyze the formation of the mycolactone core but appears inactive.[11] Each module consists of either malonyl-CoA or methylmalonyl-CoAAcyltransferase (AT) that allows for chain extension, a ketosynthase (KS), which catalyzes chain elongation, and an Acyl carrier protein (ACP) where the growing polyketide chain is attached. Modules may also consist of any of the following modifying domains: a dehydratase (DH), an enoyl reductase (ER) and one of two types of ketoreductase (KR) domains. Type A and B KRs refer to the two directions of ketoreduction that are correlated with specific amino acids in the active site. Four of the DH domains are predicted to be inactive based on a point mutation found in the active site sequence.[10][12]
^Hong H; Stinear T; Skelton P; Spencer JB; Leadlay PF. (Sep 2005). "Structure elucidation of a novel family of mycolactone toxins from the frog pathogen Mycobacterium sp. MU128FXT by mass spectrometry". Chem Commun. 34 (34): 4306–8. doi:10.1039/b506835e. PMID16113730.
^Meier, Jordan L.; Barrows-Yano, Tiffany; Foley, Timothy L.; Wike, Candice L.; Burkart, Michael D. (2008). "The unusual macrocycle forming thioesterase of mycolactone". Molecular BioSystems. 4 (6): 663–671. doi:10.1039/b801397g. PMID18493665.
^Bali, Shilpa; Weissman, Kira J. (4 December 2006). "Ketoreduction in Mycolactone Biosynthesis: Insight into Substrate Specificity and Stereocontrol from Studies of Discrete Ketoreductase Domains in vitro". ChemBioChem. 7 (12): 1935–1942. doi:10.1002/cbic.200600285. PMID17031885. S2CID40596187.