Structure and Biosynthesis of Staphyloxanthin from Staphylococcus aureus

Inhibition of staphyloxanthin biosynthesis in Staphylococcus aureus by rhodomyrtone, a novel antibiotic candidate

“…A team of researchers discovered recently that inhibition of S. aureus CrtM and CrtN reduced bacterial survival during infections, suggesting a novel virulencetargeted approach for antibiotic therapy (Hammond & White, 1970a, b;Liu et al, 2008). The first committed step in the staphyloxanthin biosynthetic pathway proceeds through presqualene diphosphate and then dehydrosqualene, catalysed by CrtM (Pelz et al, 2005), and is very similar to that catalysed by SQS in plants, animals and some protozoa, as demonstrated in Fig. 1 (Song et al, 2009b).…”

“…Staphyloxanthin of S. aureus is a virulence factor for the organism (Song et al, 2009a, b). The golden-coloured pigment is a typical secondary metabolite that is not essential for growth and reproduction of the pathogen (Liu et al, 2008) but might aid invasiveness in vivo (Pelz et al, 2005). To investigate the biological activities of rhodomyrtone on S. aureus pigment production, carotenoids were extracted from rhodomyrtone-treated S. aureus.…”

“…Carotenoid extraction was performed as described elsewhere (Pelz et al, 2005). In brief, the washed bacterial cells were extracted by resuspending in ethanol and placed at 40 uC for 20 min.…”

“…In the final step, the acyltransferase CrtO enzyme esterifies glucose at the C69 position with the carboxyl group of 12-methyltetradecanoic acid to give the acyl compound staphyloxanthin (Fig. 1) (Pelz et al, 2005).…”

Genome-based reclassification of Bacillus cibi as a later heterotypic synonym of Bacillus indicus and emended description of Bacillus indicus

“…2b); the 29-32 min peaks had spectra consistent with 4,4'-diaponeurosporene, the 36-40 min peaks had spectra consistent with 4,4'-diaponeurosporenoate, and the 33-36 min peaks had spectra consistent with staphyloxanthin. Analysis of the two strains' genomes revealed several operons with homologues of the Staphylococcus aureus crtOPQMN genes that are responsible for the synthesis of the golden pigment staphyloxanthin (Pelz et al, 2005). Some of the different peaks in each region are very likely to be different geometric isomers (Melendez-Martinez et al, 2013).…”