Daniel and Niels Koning. The credit is given to the man, the name is Johan Joelsson.
A research team at Lund University in Sweden has succeeded in producing two molecules that are only formed by microorganisms from extremely contaminated wastewater in an abandoned mine in South Korea. The method took four years to develop. The study was published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.
Drug development can be made easier with the use of glionitrin A and B. For almost a decade, researchers who want to use these molecules have faced an uphill battle.
The natural products are produced by a fungus that was found in extremely contaminated acidic wastewater from an abandoned South Korean mine. It has proved difficult to produce the molecule from the same sewage because the fungus only creates it when triggered by specificbacteria.
We have been working on this problem for four years. "When we thought we had a solution, the molecule revealed unexpected properties that sent us back to the drawing board."
The solution was simpler and more effective than the researchers thought. The most accessible parts of the molecule were forged by Daniel and his colleagues with a new asymmetric organocatalytic reaction.
A credit was given to Glionitrin A.
The molecule had one last surprise when we thought the problem had been solved. The molecule we thought was glionitrin A was actually a mirror image.
glionitrin A and B are natural products with unique properties.
glionitrin B makes cancer cells less prone to migrate, while glionitrin A has shown antibiotic properties against resistantbacteria. Being able to make the molecule synthetically helps researchers understand how it works and improves their properties.
There is a need for new types of antibiotics that can help the fight against resistantbacteria. We expect our results to inspire further developments in basic synthetic chemistry and also to be used in drug development.
Nicolas R. Koning and his colleagues presented their research in the Journal of the American Chemical Society. There is a DOI: 10.1021/jacs.
The Journal of the American Chemical Society has information.
The synthetic code of raremolecules sought after in drug development was cracked by researchers.
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