Cloning and Characterization of Actinorhodin Biosynthetic Gene Clusters from Streptomyces lividans TK24

Actinorhodin antibiotics produced by Streptomyces lividans TK24 are blue pigments with a weak antibiotic activity, derived from one acetyl-CoA and 15 malonyl-CoA units via a typical ployketide pathway. In an attempt to clone polyketide biosynthetic genes of S. lividans TK24, hybridizing fragments in the genomic DNA of S. lividans TK24 were detected by use of acn and act III polyketide synthase gene probes. Since typical aromatic polyketide bio-synthetic gene clusters are roughly 22-34 Kb long, we constructed in E. coli XL-Blue MR using the Streptomyces-E. coli bifunctional shuttle cosmid vector (pojn46). Then, about 5,000 individual E. coii colonies were thor-oughly screened with acrl-ORFI and actIII probes. From these cosmid libra-ries, 12 positive clones were identified. Restriction analysis and southern hybridization showed two polyketide biosynthetic gene clusters in this organism. These cosmid clones can be transformed into Streptomyces parvulus 12434 for expression test that identify product of actinorhodin biosynthetic genes by heterologous expression. Thus, heterologous expres-sion of a derivative compound of a actinorhodin biosynthetic intermediate was obtained in pKE2430. Expression of these compounds by the trans-formants was detected by photodiode array HPLC analysis of crude extracts.