Title: Discovery, Biosynthesis and Functional Study of Natural Products

Abstract: Natural products are important small molecules for studying, treating, and even causing human diseases, and they often have unique functional groups that are critical for their biological activities. By exploiting the biosynthetic machinery by which these functionalities are synthesized, it is possible to enhance, vary or diminish the biological activities of parent compounds and apply the biosynthetic machinery to new systems for functional group installation. We have discovered novel enzymes for generating unique functionalities of natural products, and a recent example on N‐hydroxytriazene synthesis will be highlighted in this talk. In addition, microbiome analysis of human oral microbiota has indicated that oral microbes have great potential to synthesize diverse natural products which are correlated with oral health or disease. However, among thousands of predicted oral natural products, less than 1% have been known. This knowledge gap prevents mechanistic study of natural product-mediated chemical communications in these important ecological niches. My lab has thus been dedicated to the discovery of new oral natural products and their ecological roles. A story of mutanofactin discovery with its mode of action in promoting biofilm formation of oral streptococci will be presented.