Geosmin biosynthesis. Streptomyces coelicolor germacradienol/germacrene D synthase converts farnesyl diphosphate to geosmin

BIOL 223

Jiaoyang Jiang, Xiaofei He, and David E. Cane, david_cane@brown.edu. Department of Chemistry, Brown University, 324 Brook Street, Providence, RI 02912
Geosmin is responsible for the characteristic odor of moist soil. Incubation of recombinant germacradienol synthase, encoded by the SCO6073 (SC9B1.20) gene of the Gram positive soil bacterium Streptomyces coelicolor, with farnesyl diphosphate (2, FPP) in the presence of Mg2+ gave a mixture of (4S,7R)-germacra-1(10)E,5E-diene-11-ol (3) (74%), (-)-(7S)-germacrene D (4) (10%), geosmin (1) (13%), and an octalin, assigned the structure of hydrocarbon 5 (3%). Individual incubations of recombinant germacradienol synthase with [1,1-2H2]FPP (2a), (1R)-[1-2H]-FPP (2b), and (1S)-[1-2H]-FPP (2c), as well as with FPP (2) in D2O, and GC–MS analysis of the resulting deuterated products supported a mechanism of geosmin formation involving proton-initiated cyclization and retro-Prins fragmentation of the initially formed germacradienol to give intermediate 5, followed by protonation of 5, 1,2-hydride shift, and capture of water.

 

Enzymes
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Division of Biological Chemistry

The 232nd ACS National Meeting, San Francisco, CA, September 10-14, 2006