• Korean Journal of Microbiology
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• v.33 no.2
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• pp.111-117
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• 1997

Streptomyces virginiae produces a set of autoregulators termed virginiae butanolide A-E(VB-A-E) which trigger virginiamycin production, and possesses a high-affinity virginiae butanolide receptor. To elucidate the functions of VB-C and VB-C receptor, we isolated two mutants from S. virginiae by N-methyl-N'-nitro-N-nitrosoguanidine and hydroxylamine. The characteristics of the mutants showed that the producing time of antibiotics was very delayed due to a slower production of VB-C receptor than that of VB. In S. ostreogriseus(VB', receptor -) and S. graminofaciens(VBU, receptor+), which produce the virginiamycin, the addition of synthetic VB-C repressed the production of antibiotics in S. ostreogriseus but induced tbe production in S. graminofaciens. HPLC analysis of S. graminofaciens suggested that the VB-C might have an ability to induce the production of virginiamycin and other antibiotics. These results imply that the VB-C has an ability to trigger the production of other secondary metabolites as well as virginiamycin under VB-C receptor existence.