The saccharomicins A and B, produced by the actinomycete Saccharothrix espanaensis, are oligosaccharide antibiotics. They consist of 17 monosaccharide units and the unique aglycon N-(m,p-dihydroxycinnamoyl)taurine. To investigate candidate genes responsible for the formation of trans-m,p-dihydroxycinnamic acid (caffeic acid) as part of the saccharomicin aglycon, gene expression experiments were carried out in Streptomyces fradiae XKS. It is shown that the biosynthetic pathway for trans-caffeic acid proceeds from L-tyrosine via trans-p-coumaric acid directly to trans-caffeic acid, since heterologous expression of sam8, encoding a tyrosine ammonia-lyase, led to the production of trans-p-hydroxycinnamic acid (coumaric acid), and coexpression of sam8 and sam5, the latter encoding a 4-coumarate 3-hydroxylase, led to the production of trans-m,p-dihydroxycinnamic acid. This is not in accordance with the general phenylpropanoid pathway in plants, where trans-pcoumaric acid is first activated before the 3-hydroxylation of its ring takes place.Saccharothrix is a genus of gram-positive bacteria belonging to the well-known order Actinomycetales. Most agents used at present for the treatment of bacterial infections were discovered in members of the Actinomycetales. Saccharothrix espanaensis produces the two heptadecaglycoside antibiotics saccharomicins A and B, which represent a new class of antibiotics (15, 18). They exhibit potent antibacterial activity both in vitro and in vivo against multiply-resistant strains of Staphylococcus aureus as well as vancomycin-resistant enterococci (25). The saccharomicins consist of an oligosaccharide portion and the intriguing aglycon N-(m,p-dihydroxycinnamoyl)taurine (Fig. 1), in which caffeic acid is linked to the amino sulfonic acid taurine via an amide bond.Enzymes belonging to the group of ammonia-lyases catalyze the conversion of ␣-amino acids into ␣,␤-unsaturated acids by elimination of ammonia. Ubiquitous in plants and fungi, phenylalanine ammonia-lyase (PAL) (EC 4.3.1.5) catalyzes the nonoxidative deamination of the primary amino acid L-phenylalanine to trans-cinnamic acid (trans-cinnamate), which is the first reaction of the so-called general phenylpropanoid pathway in plants (8). Phenylpropanoids include several important natural product classes, for example, flavonoids, lignins, and coumarins. In monocotyledons, PAL utilizes L-tyrosine in addition to L-phenylalanine (resulting in trans-p-coumaric acid), whereas the enzyme from dicotyledons converts only L-phenylalanine sufficiently. Both PAL and tyrosine ammonia-lyase (TAL) activity are very rare in bacteria (17, 30).The next reactions of the three-step general phenylpropanoid pathway are catalyzed by the enzymes trans-cinnamate 4-monooxygenase (also called cinnamate 4-hydroxylase; EC 1.14.13.11), leading to trans-p-coumaric acid (trans-4-coumarate), and 4-coumarate-coenzyme A (CoA) ligase (EC 6.2.1.12), leading to 4-coumaroyl-CoA (8).In this report, we describe the cloning and identification of two genes from S. espanaensis w...

The entire simocyclinone biosynthetic cluster (sim gene cluster) from the producer Streptomyces antibioticus Tü6040 was identified on six overlapping cosmids (1N1, 5J10, 2L16, 2P6, 4G22, and 1K3). In total, 80.7 kb of DNA from these cosmids was sequenced, and the analysis revealed 49 complete open reading frames (ORFs). These ORFs include genes responsible for the formation and attachment of four different moieties originating from at least three different pools of primary metabolites. Also in the sim gene cluster, four ORFs were detected that resemble putative regulatory and export functions. Based on the putative function of the gene products, a model for simocyclinone D8 biosynthesis was proposed. Biosynthetic mutants were generated by insertional gene inactivation experiments, and culture extracts of these mutants were analyzed by high-performance liquid chromatography. Production of simocyclinone D8 was clearly detectable in the wild-type strain but was not detectable in the mutant strains. This indicated that indeed the sim gene cluster had been cloned.Simocyclinone D8 (Fig. 1) is produced by Streptomyces antibioticus Tü6040. It is active against gram-positive bacteria and also shows distinct cytostatic activities against human tumor cell lines (39,40,46). Simocyclinone D8 consists of four different moieties, an angucyclic polyketide core, a deoxyhexose (D-olivose), a tetraene side chain, and a halogenated aminocoumarin. The aromatic polyketide moiety is characterized by a large number of unusually placed hydroxyl groups and an oxiran bridge at positions C-12a and C-6a. It contains a Cglycosidically linked D-olivose at position C-9. Attached to the 4-OH group of D-olivose is an acetyl group, and attached to the 3-OH group is a tetraene side chain. Both are linked to the deoxysugar by ester bonds. The final amino-coumarin moiety is linked to the tetraene chain by an amide bond, resulting in an unusual polyene-amide structure. Features that distinguish simocyclinone from other angucycline antibiotics are the enormous size of the molecule and the fact that it originates from at least three different pools of primary metabolites. S. antibioticus Tü6040 also produces other simocyclinones, which can be seen as intermediates of simocyclinone D8. These compounds include simocyclinones of the A-series, the B-series, and the C-series, consisting either of the polyketide moiety (series A), the polyketide moiety plus D-olivose (series B), and the polyketide moiety plus D-olivose plus the tetraene side chain (series C) (40). Genetic engineering and combinatorial biosynthesis in bacteria provide an important new tool for drug discovery and drug design (16,19,24). Knowledge of the sequence and function of genes involved in the biosynthesis of natural products is prerequisite for this new approach. In the present study we describe the isolation of the simocyclinone biosynthetic gene cluster. Sequencing of the entire gene cluster revealed the presence of 49 open reading frames (ORFs) probably involved in simocyclinone bios...

The gram-positive bacterium Streptomyces aureofaciens Tü117 produces the acyclic polyene antibiotic ␣-lipomycin. The entire biosynthetic gene cluster (lip gene cluster) was cloned and characterized. DNA sequence analysis of a 74-kb region revealed the presence of 28 complete open reading frames (ORFs), 22 of them belonging to the biosynthetic gene cluster. Central to the cluster is a polyketide synthase locus that encodes an eight-module system comprised of four multifunctional proteins. In addition, one ORF shows homology to those for nonribosomal peptide synthetases, indicating that ␣-lipomycin belongs to the classification of hybrid peptide-polyketide natural products. Furthermore, the lip cluster includes genes responsible for the formation and attachment of D-digitoxose as well as ORFs that resemble those for putative regulatory and export functions. We generated biosynthetic mutants by insertional gene inactivation. By analysis of culture extracts of these mutants, we could prove that, indeed, the genes involved in the biosynthesis of lipomycin had been cloned, and additionally we gained insight into an unusual biosynthesis pathway.