SummaryMersacidin is a tetracyclic lantibiotic with antibacterial activity against Gram-positive pathogens. To probe the specificity of the biosynthetic pathway of mersacidin and obtain analogs with improved antibacterial activity, an efficient system for generating variants of this lantibiotic was developed. A saturation mutagenesis library of the residues of mersacidin not involved in cycle formation was constructed and used to validate this system. Mersacidin analogs were obtained in good yield in approximately 35% of the cases, producing a collection of 82 new compounds. This system was also used for the production of deletion and insertion mutants of mersacidin. The outcome of these studies suggests that this system can be extended to produce mersacidin variants with multiple changes that will allow a full investigation of the potential use of modified mersacidins as therapeutic agents.

SummaryThe biosynthetic pathway of the type B lantibiotic actagardine (formerly gardimycin), produced by Actinoplanes garbadinensis ATCC31049, has been cloned, sequenced and annotated. The gene cluster contains the gene garA that encodes the actagardine prepropeptide, a modification gene garM, involved in the dehydration and cyclization of the prepeptide, several putative transporter and regulatory genes as well as a novel luciferase-like monooxygenase gene designated garO. Expression of these genes in Streptomyces lividans resulted in the production of ala(0)-actagardine while deletion of the garA gene from A. garbadinensis generated a strain incapable of producing actagardine. Actagardine production was successfully restored however, by the delivery of the plasmid pAGvarX. This plasmid contains an engineered cassette of the actagardine encoding gene garA and offers an alternative route to generating extensive libraries of actagardine variants. Using this plasmid, an alanine scanning library has been constructed and the mutants analysed. Further modifications include the removal of the novel garO gene from A. garbadinensis. Deletion of this gene resulted in the production of deoxy variants of actagardine, demonstrating that the formation of the sulfoxide group is enzyme catalysed and not a spontaneous chemical modification as previously believed.

Polyketides are a structurally diverse group of natural products, which exhibit a broad range of biological effects including antibiotic, antifungal, immunosuppressive, and anticancer activities [1]. They are synthesized on polyketide synthases (PKSs), which convert intracellular acyl-CoA precursors into complex polyketide backbones via a stepwise chain building mechanism employing different combinations of a standard set of biochemical reactions. There are three canonical types of PKS, based on their structure and mechanisms of operation: type I (iterative or modular), type II and type III [2]. The best-studied modular type I PKS is the 6-deoxyerythronolide B synthase (EC 2.3.1.94) (DEBS) from Saccharopolyspora erythraea, which produces the polyketide backbone of the antibiotic erythromycin (Fig. 1A). DEBS consists of three large bimodular polypeptides (DEBS1, DEBS2, and DEBS3) (each > 300 kDa) which together catalyze the stepwise condensation of a propionyl-CoA-derived primer unit with six methylmalonyl-CoA-derived extender units to yield 6-deoxyerythronolide B (6dEB) [1]. The hallmark of a modular type I PKS is that there is a separate domain for every step of the assembly of the polyketide chain, and they are disposed along the PKS Limited proteolysis in combination with liquid chromatography-ion trap mass spectrometry (LC-MS) was used to analyze engineered or natural proteins derived from a type I modular polyketide synthase (PKS), the 6-deoxyerythronolide B synthase (DEBS), and comprising either the first two extension modules linked to the chain-terminating thioesterase (TE) (DEBS1-TE); or the last two extension modules (DEBS3) or the first extension module linked to TE (diketide synthase, DKS). Functional domains were released by controlled proteolysis, and the exact boundaries of released domains were obtained through mass spectrometry and N-terminal sequencing analysis. The acyltransferase-acyl carrier protein required for chain initiation (AT L -ACP L ), was released as a didomain from both DEBS1-TE and DKS, as well as the off-loading TE as a didomain with the adjacent ACP. Mass spectrometry was used successfully to monitor in detail both the release of individual domains, and the patterns of acylation of both intact and digested DKS when either propionyl-CoA or n-butyrylCoA were used as initiation substrates. In particular, both loading domains and the ketosynthase domain of the first extension module (KS1) were directly observed to be simultaneously primed. The widely available and simple MS methodology used here offers a convenient approach to the proteolytic mapping of PKS multienzymes and to the direct monitoring of enzyme-bound intermediates.Abbreviations

The binding of the transport inhibitor forskolin, synthetically labelled with (13)C, to the galactose-H(+) symport protein GalP, overexpressed in its native inner membranes from Escherichia coli, was studied using cross-polarization magic angle spinning (13)C NMR. (13)C-Labelled D-galactose and D-glucose were displaced from GalP with the singly labelled [7-OCO(13)CH(3)]forskolin and were not bound to any alternative site within the protein, demonstrating that any multiple sugar binding sites are not simultaneously accessible to these sugars and the inhibitor within GalP. The observation of singly (13)C-labelled forskolin was hampered by interference from natural abundance (13)C in the membranes and so the effectiveness of double-quantum filtration was assessed for the exclusive detection of (13)C spin pairs in sugar (D-[1,2-(13)C(2)]glucose) and inhibitor ([7-O(13)CO(13)CH(3)]forskolin) bound to the GalP protein. The solid state NMR methodology was not effective in creating double-quantum selection of ligand bound with membranes in the 'fluid' state (approx. 2 degrees C) but could be applied in a straightforward way to systems that were kept frozen. At -35 degrees C, double-quantum filtration detected unbound sugar that was incorporated into ice structure within the sample, and was not distinguished from protein-bound sugar. However, the method detected doubly labelled forskolin that is selectively bound only to the transport system under these conditions and provided very effective suppression of interference from natural abundance (13)C background. These results indicate that solid state NMR methods can be used to resolve selectively the interactions of more hydrophobic ligands in the binding sites of target proteins.