Thiamin biosynthesis: still yielding fascinating biological chemistry

The present paper describes the biosynthesis of the thiamin thiazole in Bacillus subtilis and Saccharomyces cerevisiae . The two pathways are quite different: in B. subtilis , the thiazole is formed by an oxidative condensation of glycine, deoxy-D-xylulose 5-phosphate and a protein thiocarboxylate, whereas, in S. cerevisiae , the thiazole is assembled from glycine, NAD and Cys 205 of the thiazole synthase.