Unveiling cytochrome P450 enzymes that catalyze steroid side-chain cleavage in bacteria
Wenya Tian, Guangzheng Wei, Borui Duan, Haidong Peng, Huanhuan Liu, Mengmeng Zheng, Zhi Lin, Zixin Deng, Zhengyu Zhang, Xudong Qu · 2025
Read Unveiling cytochrome P450 enzymes that catalyze steroid side-chain cleavage in bacteria by Wenya Tian, Guangzheng Wei, Borui Duan, Haidong Peng, Huanhuan Liu, Mengmeng Zheng, Zhi Lin, Zixin Deng, Zhengyu Zhang, Xudong Qu (2025) in the Tower of Babel, a free online library of public-domain works preserved in clean, searchable text. No sign-up. The full text is served as a plain-text file at a predictable URL, where text is present: https://antarctic-labs.com/tower-of-babel/pmc-12808266.txt.
Description
Wenya Tian and co-authors found, in a 2025 study, the bacterial enzymes that snip the side chain off steroids, a founding step in making steroid drugs and hormones. Mammals use a famous enzyme for this cut, but bacterial versions stayed hidden despite their factory promise. Screening steroid-eating bacteria turned up a whole family, CYP204, spread across many species.
These enzymes cut cholesterol, plant sterols, and cholestenone into pregnenolone and progesterone. Unlike the picky mammalian enzyme, they accept varied starting material and favor the progesterone route that drug makers want. Their mechanism bends carbon-hydrogen bonds at two spots flexibly rather than hydroxylating step by step. Targeted mutation sharpened their cutting up to six and a half fold. The find seeds greener routes to steroid production.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Wenya Tian, Guangzheng Wei, Borui Duan, Haidong Peng, Huanhuan Liu, Mengmeng Zheng, Zhi Lin, Zixin Deng, Zhengyu Zhang, Xudong Qu |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2025 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 46 KB |
| VERSION | 1.0 |
| LICENSE | CC BY 4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |