Towards the structure of an unusual nonribosomal peptide synthetase

Cereulide synthetase (Ces) is a macromolecular machine that produces a toxin involved in severe and lethal food poisoning. Ces belongs to the nonribosomal peptide synthetase (NRPS) family protein, and as such, it employs an assembly line mechanism to generate its cereulide product. The assembly line for cereulide differs from the canonical NRPS pathway because it adds hydroxy acids instead of amino acids at half of the positions in the …