We are delighted to announce the publication of a new paper by our colleague Ben in Angewandte Chemie – a huge success, for which we congratulate him warmly!

The paper, entitled ‘Characterisation of the N-Methyltransferase SgPsmC: Application in the Kinetic Resolution of Pyrroloindoline’, deals with a highly relevant topic in natural product and drug chemistry. Many pharmacological compounds and natural products are based on a pyrroloindoline backbone, which clearly underlines the importance of this heterocyclic motif in drug development.

The study characterised the N-methyltransferase SgPsmC from Streptomyces griseofuscus, an enzyme that plays a key role in the biosynthesis of physostigmine. Building on these findings, SgPsmC was successfully used for selective kinetic racemic separation of pyrroloindolines – even on a preparative scale in the laboratory. This work thus expands the existing toolset for the selective synthesis of this important class of molecules and impressively demonstrates the potential of biocatalytic approaches in natural product chemistry.

We warmly congratulate everyone involved on this successful publication.

The Publication is online available.