The biosynthesis of the methylated sesquiterpene sodorifen, which features a cryptic methylation pattern, has now been studied through extensive labelling experiments and computational chemistry. The methyl group formation is now understood to come from methylene carbons of the substrate farnesyl diphosphate and the absolute configuration of the biosynthetic intermediate presodorifen diphosphate has been revised.
- Houchao Xu
- Lukas Lauterbach
- Jeroen S. Dickschat