1.13 - Methylerythritol Phosphate Pathway

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Isoprenoids represent the most diverse natural products family. Their carbon skeleton is formally derived from the branched C5 isoprene skeleton. Two metabolic pathways are utilized by living organisms for synthesizing isopentenyl diphosphate (IPP) and dimethylallyl diphosphate, the universal precursors of this series. In animals, fungi, a few bacteria, and in the cytoplasm of the phototrophic organisms, acetyl coenzyme A and mevalonate (MVA), as the committed intermediate, are the precursors of isoprene units. In most bacteria and in the plastids of phototrophic organisms and related phyla, isoprene units are derived from carbohydrate metabolism. Glyceraldehyde phosphate and pyruvate serve as starting material, leading to methylerythritol phosphate (MEP), the key intermediate of this alternative pathway. In the first issue of this encyclopedia, two chapters were devoted to the discovery of this overlooked metabolic pathway in bacteria and plants. In this second issue, the state of the art on the knowledge of the genes and enzymes of the MVA-independent MEP pathway is presented, with perspectives toward the development of new antimicrobial drugs and the regulation of isoprenoid biosynthesis in plants.

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Michel Rohmer, Professor of Chemistry, Université de Strasbourg/CNRS, Institut de Chimie, Strasbourg, France. As a chemical engineer of the Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Chimie de Strasbourg (1970), Michel Rohmer completed his Ph.D. thesis under the supervision of Professsor Guy Ourisson at the Université Louis Pasteur of Strasbourg (1975), working on the chemistry and biochemistry of prokaryotic triterpenoids. Meanwhile, he was ‘assistant’ and later ‘maître-assistant’ in Pharmacognosy at the Faculty of Pharmacy of the Université Louis Pasteur (1974–79). After postdoctoral work with Professor Carl Djerassi at Stanford University (1978–79) on sterols from marine organisms, he was promoted as Professor of organic and bio-organic chemistry first at the Université de Haute Alsace (Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Chimie) in Mulhouse (1979–94) and later in 1994 at the Faculty of Chemistry of the University of Strasbourg.

He is a member of the ‘Institut Universitaire de France’ (1997), the ‘Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher Leopoldina’ (2000) and the French ‘Académie des Sciences’ (2003).

Michel Rohmer is a specialist in the chemistry and biochemistry of isoprenoids from microorganisms and higher plants. The main discoveries include the biohopanoids, a series of pentacyclic bacterial triterpenoids, precursors of a ubiquitous family of molecular fossils, and the MEP pathway, a novel metabolic route toward the isoprene units in bacteria and plant plastids.

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