Mitomycins make up a group of antitumor natural products that are biosynthesized from aminohydroxybenzoic acid (AHBA) and N-acetylglucosamine (GlcNAc). While the biosynthetic gene cluster was reported two decades ago, the biosynthetic mechanisms of mitomycins remain elusive. Our lab has characterized the early steps in the biosynthetic pathway of mitomycin C (Biochemistry 2019), in which AHBA is first loaded onto an MmcB acyl carrier protein (ACP) by a MitE acyl ACP synthetase, followed by a transfer of GlcNAc from UDP-GlcNAc by MitB.
