Photochemistry of the nonribosomal peptide bacitracin
Rachel Lundeen's paper on the photochemistry of bacitracin A appeared online in Environmental Science & Technology today. There are a couple of aspects that make this paper special for us. It is our first paper of what we hope will be a series on the photochemistry of nonribosomal peptides, a class of important natural products that have been very poorly studied from a photochemical perspective. This paper also represents an analytical milestone for us, as mass spectrometric analysis of the products is made challenging by the cyclic peptide structure. Finally, bacitracin is a widely used antibiotic whose environmental fate is largely unknown.
Photooxidation of the antimicrobial, nonribosomal peptide bacitracin A by singlet oxygen under environmentally relevant conditions
Rachel A. Lundeen, Chiheng Chu, Michael Sander, and Kristopher McNeill
Environmental Science & Technology
