Five protein families cooperate to form the warhead structure that characterizes
enediyne compounds, both chromoprotein enediynes and non-chromoprotein enediynes.
The protein families include a polyketide synthase and thioesterase protein which
form a polyketide synthase catalytic complex involved in warhead formation in enediynes.
Genes encoding a member of each of the five protein families are found in all enediyne
biosynthetic loci. The genes and proteins may be used in genetic engineering applications
to design new enediyne compounds and in methods to identify new enediyne biosynthetic loci.
