Exploiting the Biocatalytic Potential of a Novel Polymethoxyflavone Demethylase System for Organic Synthesis and Lignin Valorization

Natural products are a rich source of compounds with a plethora of bioactivities including antimicrobial, anti-cancer, anti-diabetic. Flavonoids constitute a family of natural products with a broad variety in structure and activity, often highly substituted by functionalities of hydroxy, methoxy, or glycosylation which dictates their bioactivity. Recently, our collaborator from Korea (Prof. Jeahong Han’s Lab) discovered a gut microbe, namely Blautia producta MRG-PMF1, capable of catalyzing demethylation of PMFs and structurally related non-natural products. The observed
demethylation has been proposed to be catalyzed by the vitamin B12-dependent methyltransferase/ corrinoid protein complex. We aim to characterize the enzymatic system in vitro and utilize the natural activity towards natural product scaffolds to generate catalysts with very high selectivity.