SummaryBacteria, which prey on other microorganisms, are commonly found in the environment. While some of these organisms act as solitary hunters, others band together in large consortia before they attack their prey. Anecdotal reports suggest that bacteria practicing such a wolfpack strategy utilize antibiotics as predatory weapons. Consistent with this hypothesis, genome sequencing revealed that these micropredators possess impressive capacities for natural product biosynthesis. Here, we will present the results from recent chemical investigations of this bacterial group, compare the biosynthetic potential with that of non-predatory bacteria and discuss the link between predation and secondary metabolism.
The siderophore myxochelin A is a potent inhibitor of human 5-lipoxygenase (5-LO). To clarify whether the iron-chelating properties of myxochelin A are responsible for this activity, several analogues of this compound were generated in the native producer Pyxidicoccus fallax by precursor-directed biosynthesis. Testing in a cell-free assay unveiled three derivatives with bioactivity comparable with that of myxochelin A. Furthermore, it became evident that inhibition of 5-LO by myxochelins does not correlate with their iron affinities.
Myxobacteria utilize the catechol natural products myxochelin A and B in order to maintain their iron homeostasis. Recently, the production of these siderophores was reported from the marine bacterium S2040, along with a new myxochelin derivative named pseudochelin A. The latter features a characteristic imidazoline moiety, which was proposed to originate from an intramolecular condensation reaction of the β-aminoethyl amide group in myxochelin B. To identify the enzyme catalyzing this conversion, we compared the myxochelin regulons of two myxobacterial strains, which solely produce myxochelin A and B, with S2040. This approach revealed a gene exclusive to the myxochelin regulon in S2040, coding for an enzyme of the amidohydrolase superfamily. To prove that this enzyme is indeed responsible for the postulated conversion, the reaction was reconstituted using a hexahistidyl-tagged recombinant protein made in and myxochelin B as substrate. To test the production of pseudochelin A under conditions, the amidohydrolase gene was cloned into the myxobacterial plasmid pZJY156 and placed under the control of a copper-inducible promoter. The resulting vector was introduced into the myxobacterium DSM16526, a native producer of myxochelin A and B. Following the induction with copper, the myxobacterial expression strain was found to synthesize small quantities of pseudochelin A. Replacement of the copper-inducible promoter with the constitutive promoter led to increased production levels in , which facilitated the isolation and subsequent structural verification of the heterologously produced compound. In this study, an enzyme for imidazoline formation in pseudochelin biosynthesis was identified. Evidence for the involvement of this enzyme in the postulated reaction was obtained after reconstitution. Furthermore, the function of this enzyme was also demonstrated by transferring the corresponding gene into the bacterium , which thereby became a producer of pseudochelin A. Aside from clarifying the molecular basis of imidazoline formation in siderophore biosynthesis, we describe the heterologous expression of a gene in a myxobacterium without its chromosomal integration. Due to its metabolic proficiency, represents an interesting alternative to established host systems for the reconstitution and manipulation of biosynthetic pathways. Since the plasmid used in this study is easily adaptable for the expression of other enzymes as well, we expand the conventional expression strategy for myxobacteria, which is based on the integration of biosynthetic genes into the host genome.
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