Nature's secret of how highly complicated molecules like erythromycin A are synthesized is no longer completely safe. Lately good progress has been made towards understanding the synthesis of polyketides (to which erythromycin A belongs) by polyketide synthases (PKS). Fatty acids are synthesized along similar lines. However, erythromycin-PKS is a covalently bonded giant protein (cassette/module organization) that shows many enzyme activities. The molecule's skeleton is built up in several reaction cycles by this giant protein.
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James Staunton (1991) studied this question.
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