{
  "abstract": "Synthetic biology has enabled the production of natural and unnatural products from inexpensive sustainable feedstocks. Yet, the scope of available products has been limited largely to compounds accessible from nature’s chemical reactions. Evolved enzymes can catalyse reactions of unnatural substrates or reactions not found in nature but often require the addition of synthetic reagents to purified enzymes or to resting cells containing those enzymes. Here we show that chemical reactions of metabolic intermediates produced intracellularly in living cells can include intermolecular nitrene transfers. The biosynthesis of N-acetoxyanilines, in combination with the generation and transfer of N-aryl nitrene intermediates from them catalysed by a cytochrome P450, generates amino alcohols, diamines, diarylamines and aminoalkyl arenes from simple carbon feedstocks. These products—common substructures of pharmaceuticals and agrochemicals—are challenging to synthesize by standard organic chemistry and were produced from inexpensive, renewable feedstocks. Evolution of the enzymes in this pathway showed that titres can be increased by engineering and that the products can be synthesized with high enantioselectivity.",
  "abstract_shown": true,
  "affiliations": [
    "Department of Chemistry, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA USA",
    "Joint BioEnergy Institute, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Emeryville, CA USA",
    "Chemical Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA USA",
    "College of Natural Resources, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA USA",
    "Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA USA",
    "Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA USA",
    "Molecular Biophysics and Integrated Bioimaging Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA USA",
    "Biological Systems and Engineering Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA USA",
    "Environmental Genomics and Systems Biology Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA USA",
    "Department of Bioengineering, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA USA"
  ],
  "article_type": "research article",
  "arxiv": null,
  "author_total": 9,
  "authors": [
    {
      "affs": [
        0,
        1
      ],
      "name": "Isaac Donnell"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        0,
        2
      ],
      "name": "Andrew Quest",
      "orcid": "0009-0004-5081-3664"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        3
      ],
      "name": "Jeremy Tang",
      "orcid": "0009-0003-9152-9777"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        4
      ],
      "name": "Maodun Zhang"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        0
      ],
      "name": "Brandon Bloomer"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        5,
        6
      ],
      "name": "Douglas S. Clark",
      "orcid": "0000-0003-1516-035X"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        1,
        7,
        8
      ],
      "name": "Aindrila Mukhopadhyay",
      "orcid": "0000-0002-6513-7425"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        0,
        2
      ],
      "name": "John Hartwig",
      "orcid": "0000-0002-4157-468X"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        1,
        5,
        7,
        9
      ],
      "name": "Jay D. Keasling",
      "orcid": "0000-0003-4170-6088"
    }
  ],
  "bibtex": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/dq1pt43y8cbzd.bib",
  "cited_by": 1,
  "doi": "10.1038/s41557-026-02224-4",
  "fulltext_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC13719522/",
  "id": "dq1pt43y8cbzd",
  "issns": [
    "1755-4330",
    "1755-4349"
  ],
  "landing_url": "https://doi.org/10.1038/s41557-026-02224-4",
  "language": "en",
  "licence": "CC-BY-4.0",
  "licence_label": "CC BY 4.0",
  "licence_source": "article",
  "licence_url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
  "metadata_licence": null,
  "native_subjects": [
    [
      "heading",
      "Article"
    ],
    [
      "openalex",
      "1312|Microbial Metabolic Engineering and Bioproduction"
    ]
  ],
  "openalex": "W7203721586",
  "pdf_url": "https://www.nature.com/articles/s41557-026-02224-4.pdf",
  "pmcid": "PMC13719522",
  "pmid": "42613447",
  "published": "2026-08-18",
  "publisher": null,
  "ris": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/dq1pt43y8cbzd.ris",
  "sources": [
    {
      "first_seen": "2026-11-02T12:23:28Z",
      "native_id": "PMC13719522",
      "source": "pmc",
      "url": "https://doi.org/10.1038/s41557-026-02224-4"
    }
  ],
  "subjects": [
    {
      "field": "biochemistry",
      "origin": "openalex:1312|Microbial Metabolic Engineering and Bioproduction",
      "subfield": "molecular-biology"
    }
  ],
  "title": "Nitrene generation and transfer for unnatural biosynthesis in living cells",
  "title_text": "Nitrene generation and transfer for unnatural biosynthesis in living cells",
  "type": "peer-reviewed",
  "updated_at": "2026-11-03T12:20:34Z",
  "url": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/dq1pt43y8cbzd",
  "venue": "Nature Chemistry",
  "versions": []
}