scholarly journals Triggering the expression of a silent gene cluster from genetically intractable bacteria results in scleric acid discovery

2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 453-463 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fabrizio Alberti ◽  
Daniel J. Leng ◽  
Ina Wilkening ◽  
Lijiang Song ◽  
Manuela Tosin ◽  
...  

The characterisation of scleric acid, a new natural product from a silent and cryptic gene cluster from genetically intractable bacteria, and its biosynthesis are reported.

2015 ◽  
Vol 112 (29) ◽  
pp. 8953-8958 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Montiel ◽  
Hahk-Soo Kang ◽  
Fang-Yuan Chang ◽  
Zachary Charlop-Powers ◽  
Sean F. Brady

Large-scale sequencing of prokaryotic (meta)genomic DNA suggests that most bacterial natural product gene clusters are not expressed under common laboratory culture conditions. Silent gene clusters represent a promising resource for natural product discovery and the development of a new generation of therapeutics. Unfortunately, the characterization of molecules encoded by these clusters is hampered owing to our inability to express these gene clusters in the laboratory. To address this bottleneck, we have developed a promoter-engineering platform to transcriptionally activate silent gene clusters in a model heterologous host. Our approach uses yeast homologous recombination, an auxotrophy complementation-based yeast selection system and sequence orthogonal promoter cassettes to exchange all native promoters in silent gene clusters with constitutively active promoters. As part of this platform, we constructed and validated a set of bidirectional promoter cassettes consisting of orthogonal promoter sequences, Streptomyces ribosome binding sites, and yeast selectable marker genes. Using these tools we demonstrate the ability to simultaneously insert multiple promoter cassettes into a gene cluster, thereby expediting the reengineering process. We apply this method to model active and silent gene clusters (rebeccamycin and tetarimycin) and to the silent, cryptic pseudogene-containing, environmental DNA-derived Lzr gene cluster. Complete promoter refactoring and targeted gene exchange in this “dead” cluster led to the discovery of potent indolotryptoline antiproliferative agents, lazarimides A and B. This potentially scalable and cost-effective promoter reengineering platform should streamline the discovery of natural products from silent natural product biosynthetic gene clusters.


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
William A. Shirley ◽  
Brian P. Kelley ◽  
Yohann Potier ◽  
John H. Koschwanez ◽  
Robert Bruccoleri ◽  
...  

This pre-print explores ensemble modeling of natural product targets to match chemical structures to precursors found in large open-source gene cluster repository antiSMASH. Commentary on method, effectiveness, and limitations are enclosed. All structures are public domain molecules and have been reviewed for release.


2010 ◽  
Vol 77 (4) ◽  
pp. 1508-1511 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vishwakanth Y. Potharla ◽  
Shane R. Wesener ◽  
Yi-Qiang Cheng

ABSTRACTThe biosynthetic gene cluster of FK228, an FDA-approved anticancer natural product, was identified and sequenced previously. The genetic organization of this gene cluster has now been delineated through systematic gene deletion and transcriptional analysis. As a result, the gene cluster is redefined to contain 12 genes:depAthroughdepJ,depM, and a newly identified pathway regulatory gene,depR.


mSphere ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark C. Walker

ABSTRACT Mark Walker studies the biosynthesis and engineering of bacterial natural products with the long-term goal of identifying new antibiotic compounds. In this mSphere of Influence, he reflects on how “Direct cloning and refactoring of a silent lipopeptide biosynthetic gene cluster yields the antibiotic taromycin A” by K. Yamanaka, K. A. Reynolds, R. D. Kersten, K. S. Ryan, et al. (Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 111:1957–1962, 2014, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1319584111) impacted his thinking on using synthetic biology approaches to study natural product biosynthesis.


2016 ◽  
Vol 11 (12) ◽  
pp. 3452-3460 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ryan A. McClure ◽  
Anthony W. Goering ◽  
Kou-San Ju ◽  
Joshua A. Baccile ◽  
Frank C. Schroeder ◽  
...  

2002 ◽  
Vol 124 (34) ◽  
pp. 9968-9969 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sean F. Brady ◽  
Carol J. Chao ◽  
Jon Clardy

2011 ◽  
Vol 77 (17) ◽  
pp. 6117-6124 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin F. Kreutzer ◽  
Hirokazu Kage ◽  
Peter Gebhardt ◽  
Barbara Wackler ◽  
Hans P. Saluz ◽  
...  

ABSTRACTA genome mining study in the plant pathogenic bacteriumRalstonia solanacearumGMI1000 unveiled a polyketide synthase/nonribosomal peptide synthetase gene cluster putatively involved in siderophore biosynthesis. Insertional mutagenesis confirmed the respective locus to be operational under iron-deficient conditions and spurred the isolation of the associated natural product. Bioinformatic analyses of the gene cluster facilitated the structural characterization of this compound, which was subsequently identified as the antimycoplasma agent micacocidin. The metal-chelating properties of micacocidin were evaluated in competition experiments, and the cellular uptake of gallium-micacocidin complexes was demonstrated inR. solanacearumGMI1000, indicating a possible siderophore role. Comparative genomics revealed a conservation of the micacocidin gene cluster in defined, but globally dispersed phylotypes ofR. solanacearum.


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