In isoprenoid metabolism, cyclisation is the important gateway to chemical diversity. Terpene synthase is responsible for the cyclisation of a few universal substrates forming hundreds of often stereo-chemically complex mono- and poly-cyclic terpene hydrocarbons with a broad spectrum of functions in pharmaceuticals, flavours and fragrance industry. Although they are discovered and characterised mainly from plants and fungi, yet only a small share of bacterial terpenes has been investigated so far owing to their low level of expression in wild-type microorganisms. Extensive bacterial genome mining has revealed a treasure trove of terpene synthase genes and their regulated heterologous overexpression has pitched-in to describe the biochemical function of putative genes and sequester new terpene metabolites. This review deals with the modern genome mining techniques and molecular methods, providing more experimental tools for studying the structure and functions of terpenoid metabolites and strongly supports the idea that genome mining is a utile approach in deciphering the terpenoid diversity in bacteria.

中文翻译：

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生物信息学方法来理解类异戊二烯骨架立体发散合成的自然界统一机制

在类异戊二烯代谢中，环化是化学多样性的重要途径。萜烯合酶负责环化一些通用底物，形成数百种通常立体化学复杂的单环和多环萜烯烃，在制药、香精和香料工业中具有广泛的功能。虽然它们主要是从植物和真菌中发现和表征的，但由于它们在野生型微生物中的表达水平低，迄今为止只研究了一小部分细菌萜。广泛的细菌基因组挖掘揭示了萜烯合酶基因的宝库，它们受调节的异源过度表达已被广泛用于描述假定基因的生化功能并隔离新的萜烯代谢物。