Valinophos Reveals a New Route in Microbial Phosphonate Biosynthesis That Is Broadly Conserved in Nature

Phosphonate natural products are potent inhibitors of cellular metabolism with an established record of commercialization in medicine and biotechnology. Although genome mining has emerged as an accelerated method for the discovery of new phosphonates, a robust framework of their metabolism is needed to identify the pathways most likely to yield compounds with desired activities. Here we expand our understanding of these natural products by reporting the complete biosynthetic pathway for valinophos, a phosphonopeptide natural product containing the unusual (