Nogalamycin is an anthracycline antibiotic produced by the soil bacteria Streptomyces nogalater.

[1] Anthracycline biosynthesis involves the construction of an aglycone core (by a type II polyketide synthase) to which one or more sugar residues are attached.

[2] All of the machinery associated with the biosynthesis of nogalamycin are located within the same biosynthetic gene cluster of S. nogalater.

[3][4][5] The biosynthetic route is similar to that of aklavinone (the aglycone core of most anthracyclines, including doxorubicin), the sole difference being that the first acyl group that is loaded into the PKS is an acetate rather than a propionate.

Although the steps following dTDP-4-keto-6-deoxyglucose have not been confirmed in vitro, the high degree of sequence similarity with homologous enzymes from other organisms suggests that the mechanism proceeds as detailed at right.