Natural products discovery remains an ongoing challenge. Now, halide depletion offers a complementary approach to discover natural products whose biosynthesis requires halides, including products of cryptic halogenation. Halide depletion reveals that nostochlorosides, the products of an orphan biosynthetic gene cluster in Nostoc punctiforme, are polymerized by a halide-displacing etherifying enzyme.
- Nathaniel R. Glasser
- Dongtao Cui
- Emily P. Balskus
