Mevalonate is a starting material to synthesize many chemicals in industry ; it is also the building block of the lipids from all archaea. Scientists at the IBS and and collaborators at the Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology in Marburg and ENS Lyon discovered a coupling between the two enzymes responsible for the first step in mevalonate biosynthesis in archaea. This finding explain how archaea can produce mevalonate at high rate to support their growth, and can be applied in industry to optimize mevalonate production. Details
Archaeal acetoacetyl-CoA thiolase/HMG-CoA synthase complex channels the intermediate via a fused CoA-binding site. Vögeli, B., Engilberge, S., Girard, E., Riobé, F., Maury, O., Erb, T.J., Shima, S., Wagner, T. PNAS, 115(13) : 3380-3385