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Back Cover: Discovery of a Promiscuous Non-Heme Iron Halogenase in Ambiguine Alkaloid Biogenesis: Implication for an Evolvable Enzyme Family for Late-Stage Halogenation of Aliphatic Carbons in Small Molecules (Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 19/2016)
First published: 25 April 2016
Graphical Abstract
A promiscuous aliphatic halogenase AmbO5 was identified in studies of ambiguine alkaloid biogenesis. In their Communication on page 5780 ff., X. Liu et al. show that AmbO5 can selectively chlorinate seven structurally distinct ambiguine, fischerindole, and hapalindole alkaloids by late-stage C−H functionalization. The characterization of a C-terminal sequence motif in AmbO5 important for substrate tolerance and specificity provides evidence on the evolvable nature of this newly discovered halogenase family towards small molecules.
