Adding the lipo to lipopeptides: do more with less

Surfactin is a member of the lipopeptide family of antibiotics, which includes the clinical drug daptomycin (Cubicin). The potency of these antibiotics is affected by the attached lipid chain, which is incorporated into the nonribosomally assembled peptidyl backbone via a process known as lipoinitiation. Kraas et al. (2010) have provided valuable insights into the lipoinitiation mechanism, which will be useful for future biosynthetic modifications of lipopeptide antibiotics.