A biosynthetic pathway for the red-antibiotic, prodigiosin, was proposed over a decade ago but not all the suggested intermediates could be detected experimentally. Here we show that a thioester that was not originally included in the pathway is an intermediate. In addition, the enzyme PigE was originally described as a transaminase but we present evidence that it also catalyses the reduction of the thioester intermediate to its aldehyde substrate.

中文翻译：

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红色抗生素灵菌红素生物合成第一步的修订：使用合成硫酯验证新的中间体

十多年前提出了红色抗生素灵菌红素的生物合成途径，但并非所有建议的中间体都可以通过实验检测到。在这里，我们表明最初不包含在该途径中的硫酯是中间体。此外，PigE 酶最初被描述为转氨酶，但我们提供的证据表明它也催化硫酯中间体还原为其醛底物。