The thioesterase domain from the pimaricin and erythromycin biosynthetic pathways can catalyze hydrolysis of simple thioester substrates

The recombinant polyketide synthase thioesterase domains from the pimaricin and 6-deoxyerythronolide B biosynthetic pathways catalyze hydrolysis of a number of simple N-acetylcysteamine thioester derivatives. This study demonstrates that thioesterases are not highly substrate selective in formation of the acyl-enzyme intermediate, in contrast to non-ribosomal peptide synthase thioesterase domains that show very high specificity for substrate loading. This observation has important implications for the engineering of biosynthetic pathways to produce polyketide products.