Seminars

In contrast to most of the other primary metabolites, radical SAM enzymes play a major role in the biosynthesis of the cofactors. This lecture will describe the reconstitution and mechanistic characterization of radical SAM mediated reactions involved in molybdopterin (MoaA), thiamin (ThiC), deazaflavin (CofG and CofH) and menaquinone (MqnC and MqnD) biosynthesis. These examples will be used to demonstrate that radical SAM enzymes are uniquely suitable for catalyzing the complex rearrangements found in cofactor biosynthesis.