Free Piperazic Acid as a Precursor to Nonribosomal Peptides

Piperazic acid (Piz) is a nonproteinogenic amino acid possessing a rare nitrogen–nitrogen bond. However, little is known about how Piz is incorporated into nonribosomal peptides, including whether adenylation domains specific to Piz exist. In this study, we show that free piperazic acid is directly adenylated and then incorporated into the incarnatapeptin nonribosomal peptides through isotopic incorporation studies. We also use in vitro reconstitution to demonstrate adenylation of free piperazic acid with a three-domain nonribosomal peptide synthetase from the incarnatapeptin gene cluster. We furthermore use bioinformatics and site-directed mutagenesis to outline consensus sequences for the adenylation of piperazic acid, which can now be used for the prediction of gene clusters linked to piperazic-acid-containing peptides. Finally, we discover a fusion protein of a piperazate synthase and an adenylation domain, highlighting the close biosynthetic relationship of piperazic acid formation and its adenylation. Altogether, our work demonstrates the evolution of biosynthetic systems for the activation of free piperazic acid through adenylation, a pathway we suggest is likely to be employed in the majority of pathways to piperazic-acid-containing peptides.