Generation of acyl amino acids

A method of producing an acyl amino acid, comprising steps of:

• providing an engineered polypeptide comprising each of:
• a fatty acid linkage domain that is at least 95% identical at the amino acid level to that found in Bacillus subtilis's surfactin synthetase SrfA protein;
• a peptide synthetase domain that is at least 95% identical at the amino acid level to Bacillus subtilis's surfactin synthetase complex SrfA-A polypeptide subunit's first peptide synthetase domain;
• and
• a reductase domain that is at least 95% identical at the amino acid level to that found in Bacillus brevis's linear gramicidin synthetase complex;
• which fatty acid linkage domain, peptide synthetase domain and reductase domain are covalently linked;
• providing a fatty acid recognized by the fatty acid linkage domain;
• providing an amino acid recognized by the peptide synthetase domain;
• incubating the engineered polypeptide, fatty acid, and amino acid under conditions and for a time sufficient for the fatty acid linkage domain to link the fatty acid to the amino acid to generate an acyl amino acid;
• incubating the engineered polypeptide and the acyl amino acid under conditions and for a time sufficient for the reductase domain to catalyze release of the acyl amino acid from the engineered polypeptide.