Drugs that target the human serotonin 2A receptor (5-HT
2A
R) are used to treat neuropsychiatric diseases; however, many have hallucinogenic effects, hampering their use. Here, we present structures of 5-HT
2A
R complexed with the psychedelic drugs psilocin (the active metabolite of psilocybin) and
d
-lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), as well as the endogenous neurotransmitter serotonin and the nonhallucinogenic psychedelic analog lisuride. Serotonin and psilocin display a second binding mode in addition to the canonical mode, which enabled the design of the psychedelic IHCH-7113 (a substructure of antipsychotic lumateperone) and several 5-HT
2A
R β-arrestin–biased agonists that displayed antidepressant-like activity in mice but without hallucinogenic effects. The 5-HT
2A
R complex structures presented herein and the resulting insights provide a solid foundation for the structure-based design of safe and effective nonhallucinogenic psychedelic analogs with therapeutic effects.
Two new spirotetronate natural products, lobophorin L (1) and lobophorin M(2), together with three known lobophorin-like spirotetronate antibiotics (3−5) and two known ansamycins (6−7), were isolated from the marine-derived Streptomyces sp. 4506. The structures of 1 and 2 were established on the basis
A bioassay‐guided fractionation led to the isolation of hangtaimycin (HTM) from Streptomyces spectabilis CCTCC M2017417 and the discovery of its hepatoprotective properties. Structure elucidation by NMR suggested the need for a structural revision. A putative HTM degradation product was also isolated and its structure was confirmed by total synthesis. The biosynthetic gene cluster was identified and resembles a hybrid trans‐AT PKS/NRPS biosynthetic machinery whose first PKS enzyme contains an internal dehydrating bimodule, which is usually found split in other trans‐AT PKSs. The mechanisms of such dehydrating bimodules have often been proposed, but have never been deeply investigated. Here we present in vivo mutations and in vitro enzymatic experiments that give first and detailed mechanistic insights into catalysis by dehydrating bimodules.
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