• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.356-365
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• 2004

In analyzing the region of the Amycolatopsis mediterranei S699 chromosome responsible for the biosynthesis of the ansamycin antibiotic rifamycin, we identified a gene, designated orj0, which is located immediately upstream of the rifamycin polyketide synthase (PKS). Orj0 encodes a protein, on the basis of sequence-comparative analysis, that is similar to several cytochrome P450 monooxygenases from different sources. The rifamycin producer, A. mediterranei, predominantly produces rifamycin B from its macrocyclic intermediate, proansamycin X, through dehydrogenation and hydroxylation steps. However, an A. mediterranei strain, deleted in orj0 by gene replacement, no longer produced rifamycin B. Furthermore, a versatile replicative vector in A. mediterranei was constructed and rifamycin B production was restored in a complementation experiment of orj0 using this novel vector. These consecutive results verified that the arf0 protein, which is a P450 hydroxylase, is required for the production of rifamycin B in A. mediterranei.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.613-619
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• 2003

The polyketide backbone of rifamycin B is assembled by the type I rifamycin polyketide synthase (PKS) encoded by the rifA-rifE genes. In order to produce novel analogs of rifamycin via engineering of the PKS genes, inactivation of the ${\beta}-ketoacyl:acyl$ carrier protein reductase (KR) domain in module 8 of rifD, by site-specific mutagenesis of the NADPH binding site, was attempted. Module 8 contains a nonfunctional dehydratase (DH) domain and a functional KR domain that is involved in the reduction of the ${\beta}-carbonyl$ group, resulting in the C-21 hydroxyl of rifamycin B. This mutant strain produced linear polyketides, from tetraketide to octaketide, which were also produced by a rifD-disruption mutant as a consequence of premature termination of the polyketide assembly. Another attempt to replace the DH domain of module 7, which has been considered nonfunctional, with a functional homolog derived from module 7 of rapamycin-producing PKS also resulted in the production of linear polyketides, including the heptaketide intermediate and its precursors. Premature release of the carbon chain assembly intermediates is an unusual property of the rifamycin PKS. that is not seen in other PKSs such as the erythromycin PKS.

• 한국생물공학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2005.10a
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• pp.623-624
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• 2005

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Applied Microbiology Conference
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• 2002.10a
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• pp.18-25
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• 2002

The pikromycin biosynthetic system in Streptomyces venezuleae is unique for its ability to produce two groups of antibiotics that include the 12-membered ring macrolides methymycin and neomethymycin, and the 14-membered ring macrolides narbomycin and pikromycin. The metabolic pathway also contains two post polyketide-modification enzymes, a glycosyltransferase and P450 hydroxylase that have unusually broad substrate specificities. In order to explore further the substrate flexibility of these enzymes a series of hybrid polyketide synthases were constructed and their metabolic products characterized. The plasmid-based replacement of the multifunctional protein subunits of the pikromycin PKS in S. venezuelae by the corresponding subunits from heterologous modular PKSs resulted in recombinant strains that produce both 12- and 14-membered ring macrolactones with predicted structural alterations. In all cases, novel macrolactones were produced and further modified by the DesVII glycosyltransferase and PikC hydroxylase leading to biologically active macrolide structures. These results demonstrate that hybrid PKSs in S. venezuelae can produce a multiplicity of new macrolactones that are modified further by the highly flexible DesVII glycosyltransferase and PikC hydroxylase tailoring enzymes. This work demonstrates the unique capacity of the S. venezuelae pikromycin pathway to expand the toolbox of combinatorial biosynthesis and to accelerate the creation of novel biologically active natural products. The polyketide backbone of rifamycin B is assembled through successive condensation and ${\beta}$-carbonyl processing of the extender units by the modular rifamycin PKS. The eighth module, in the RifD protein, contains nonfunctional DH domain and functional KR domain, which specify the reduction of the ${\beta}$-carbonyl group resulting in the C-21 bydroxyl of rifamycin B. A four amino acid substitution and one amino acid deletion were introduced in the putative NADPH binding motif in the proposed KR domain encoded by rifD. This strategy of mutation was based on the amino acid sequences of the corresponding motif of the KR domain of module 3 in the RifA protein, which is believed dysfunctional, so as to introduce a minimum alteration and retain the reading frame intact, yet ensure loss of function. The resulting strain produces linear polyketides, from tetraketide to octaketide, which are also produced by a rifD disrupted mutant as a consequence of premature termination of polyketide assembly. Much of the structural diversity within the polyketide superfamily of natural products is due to the ability of PKSs to vary the reduction level of every other alternate carbon atom in the backbone. Thus, the ability to introduce heterologous reductive segments such as ketoreductase (KR), dehydratase (DH), and enoylreductase (ER) into modules that naturally lack these activities would increase the power of the combinatorial biosynthetic toolbox. The dehydratase domain of module 7 of the rifamycin PKS, which is predicted to be nonfunctional in view of the sequence of the apparent active site, was replaced with its functional homolog from module 7 of rapamycin-producing polyketide synthase. The resulting mutant strain behaved like a rifC disrupted mutant, i.e., it accumulated the heptaketide intermediate and its precursors. This result points out a major difficulty we have encountered with all the Amycolatopsis mediterranei strain containing hybrid polyketide synthases: all the engineered strains prepared so far accumulate a plethora of products derived from the polyketide chain assembly intermediates as major products instead of just analogs of rifamycin B or its ansamycin precursors.