Sun Yuhui, a professor of Wuhan University School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, and his research team, for the first time resolved a key problem of traditional antibiotic—gentamicin in cell biosynthesis and published their research findings in the world famous journal Chemistry & Biology.

As an important aminoglycoside antibiotics, gentamicin enjoys wide clinical application for its efficacy in bacterial infection treatment. In recent years, huge application potential of gentamicin makes it a popular topic for research in the field of antibiotics. However, the biosynthesis mechanism of this element has remained a puzzle since it was discovered in the 1960s.

The research team with professor Sun as the leader, cooperated with Peter Leadlay, Fellow of the Royal Society of the United Kingdom, Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry and a honorary professor of Wuhan University, testified that gentamicin X2 is key to biosynthesis by taking full advantage of molecular genetics, biochemistry and other research methodology. This finding reveals biosynthesis of gentamicin at the molecular level, providing theoretical foundation for innovating aminoglycoside antibiotics by employing combinatorial biosynthesis and synthetic biology technology.

(Rewritten by Shuanglin Huang, edited by Sijia Hu)