TY - JOUR
T1 - Catalytic promiscuity in the biosynthesis of cyclic peptide secondary metabolites in planktonic marine cyanobacteria
AU - Li, Bo
AU - Sher, Daniel
AU - Kelly, Libusha
AU - Shi, Yanxiang
AU - Huang, Katherine
AU - Knerr, Patrick J.
AU - Joewono, Ike
AU - Rusch, Doug
AU - Chisholm, Sallie W.
AU - Van Der Donk, Wilfred A.
PY - 2010/6/8
Y1 - 2010/6/8
N2 - Our understanding of secondary metabolite production in bacteria has been shaped primarily by studies of attached varieties such as symbionts, pathogens, and soil bacteria. Here we show that a strain of the single-celled, planktonic marine cyanobacterium Prochlorococcus - which conducts a sizable fraction of photosynthesis in the oceans - produces many cyclic, lanthionine-containing peptides (lantipeptides). Remarkably, in Prochlorococcus MIT9313 a single promiscuous enzyme transforms up to 29 different linear ribosomally synthesized peptides into a library of polycyclic, conformationally constrained products with highly diverse ring topologies. Genes encoding this system are found in variable abundances across the oceans - with a hot spot in a Galapagos hypersaline lagoon - suggesting they play a habitat- and/or community-specific role. The extraordinarily efficient pathway for generating structural diversity enables these cyanobacteria to produce as many secondary metabolites as model antibiotic-producing bacteria, but with much smaller genomes.
AB - Our understanding of secondary metabolite production in bacteria has been shaped primarily by studies of attached varieties such as symbionts, pathogens, and soil bacteria. Here we show that a strain of the single-celled, planktonic marine cyanobacterium Prochlorococcus - which conducts a sizable fraction of photosynthesis in the oceans - produces many cyclic, lanthionine-containing peptides (lantipeptides). Remarkably, in Prochlorococcus MIT9313 a single promiscuous enzyme transforms up to 29 different linear ribosomally synthesized peptides into a library of polycyclic, conformationally constrained products with highly diverse ring topologies. Genes encoding this system are found in variable abundances across the oceans - with a hot spot in a Galapagos hypersaline lagoon - suggesting they play a habitat- and/or community-specific role. The extraordinarily efficient pathway for generating structural diversity enables these cyanobacteria to produce as many secondary metabolites as model antibiotic-producing bacteria, but with much smaller genomes.
KW - Combinatorial biosynthesis
KW - Global ocean survey metagenome
KW - Lantibiotic
KW - Synechococcus
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=77953742146&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1073/pnas.0913677107
DO - 10.1073/pnas.0913677107
M3 - Article
C2 - 20479271
AN - SCOPUS:77953742146
SN - 0027-8424
VL - 107
SP - 10430
EP - 10435
JO - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
JF - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
IS - 23
ER -