NEW SESQUITERPENE SYNTHASES ISOLATED FROM ORANGE PEEL

摘要

The present invention relates to a natural orange sesquiterpene synthase enzyme (CsTPS3) with δ-cadinene synthase activity, and also to the variants of said enzyme modified by the substitution of at least one amino acid that changes the catalytic activity thereof, converting said variants preferably into enzymes with elemol synthase activity or germacrene D synthase activity. A further subject matter of the present invention is the nucleic acid that encodes the natural CsTPS3 enzyme and also the modified versions derived therefrom, in addition to the gene constructs, expression vectors and bacterial strains that comprise same. The invention also relates to the use of these enzymes for synthesizing sesquiterpenes, preferably δ-cadinene, elemol and germacrene D, and provides a method for obtaining same.