Structural Bases of Dihydroxy Acid Dehydratase Inhibition and Biodesign for Self-Resistance

Dihydroxy acid dehydratase (DHAD) is the third enzyme in the plant branched-chain amino acid biosynthetic pathway and the target for commercial herbicide development. We have previously reported the discovery of fungal natural product aspterric acid (AA) as a submicromolar inhibitor of DHAD through self-resistance gene directed genome mining. Here, we reveal the mechanism of AA inhibition on DHAD and the self-resistance mechanism of AstD, which is encoded by the self-resistance gene