Reconstitution of a Type II Polyketide Synthase that Catalyzes Polyene Formation

While type II polyketide synthases (PKSs) are known for producing aromatic compounds, a phylogenetically new subfamily of type II PKSs have been recently proposed to synthesize polyene structures. Here we report in vitro analysis of such a type II PKS, IgaPKS for ishigamide biosynthesis. The ketoreductase (Iga13) and dehydratase (Iga16) were shown to catalyze the reduction of a beta-keto group and dehydration of a beta-hydroxy group, respectively, to form a trans double bond. Incubation of the acyl carrier protein (Iga10), the ketosynthase/chain length factor complex (Iga11-Iga12), Iga13 and Iga16 with malonyl and hexanoyl-CoAs and NADPH followed by KOH hydrolysis resulted in the formation of four unsaturated carboxylic acids (C-8, C-10, C-12, and C-14), indicating that IgaPKS catalyzes tetraene formation by repeating the cycle of condensation, keto-reduction and dehydration with strict stereo-specificity. We propose "highly reducing type II PKS subfamily" for the polyene-producing type II PKSs.