Basidiomycetes produce a wide range of industrially relevant natural products. One of the main classes of natural products isolated from fungi are terpenoids, a highly diverse group of secondary metabolites, many of which are bioactive and have been adapted for pharmaceutical purposes. The discovery of a suite of novel sesquiterpene synthases from Omphalotus olearius via genome sequencing and bioinformatic analyses has recently been described. Here, the expression, purification and crystallization of one of these enzymes (Omp6), a protoilludene synthase, is reported. A native crystal diffracted to a resolution of 2.9 Å and belonged to space group P21, with unit-cell parameters a = 43.67, b = 76.76, c = 107.22 Å, α = γ = 90, β = 95°. A diffraction data set was collected on a home-source Rigaku/MSC MicroMax-007 X-ray generator.
Keywords: Omphalotus olearius; natural products; protoilludene; sesquiterpene synthases.