Oxidosqualene cyclases in triterpenoids biosynthesis: a review.

Author: Cuiyu CHEN ¹ ; Yaru PANG ¹ ; Quanbing CHEN ¹ ; Chun LI ¹ ; Bo LÜ ¹
Author Information

1. Institute of Biochemical Engineering, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing 102488, China.
Publication Type:Review
Keywords: catalytic mechanism; molecular evolution; molecular simulation; oxidosqualene cyclase; triterpenoids
MeSH: Intramolecular Transferases/metabolism*; Metabolic Engineering; Plants/genetics*; Squalene/chemistry*; Triterpenes
From: Chinese Journal of Biotechnology 2022;38(2):443-459
CountryChina
Language:Chinese
Abstract: Triterpenoids are one of the most diverse compounds in plant metabolites, and they have a wide variety of physiological activities and are of important economic value. Oxidosqualene cyclases catalyze the cyclization of 2, 3-oxidosqualene to generate different types of sterols and plant triterpenoids, which is of great significance to the structural diversity of natural products. However, the mechanism of the diversified cyclization of 2, 3-oxidosqualene catalyzed by oxidosqualene cyclases remains unclear. This review summarized the research progress of oxidosqualene cyclases from the aspects of catalytic function, molecular evolutionary relationship between genes and proteins, protein structure, molecular simulation and molecular calculations, which may provide a reference for protein engineering and metabolic engineering of triterpene cyclase.