No abstract

During the course of our screening program for natural product drugs effective against multidrug resistant cells by using adriamycin resistant HL-60 cells, we have discovered a new 12 membered macrolide FD-895 in the fermentation broth of Streptomyces hygroscopicus A-9561 isolated from a soil sample collected at Iriomote Island, Okinawa prefecture, Japan. FD-895 showed stronger cytocidal activities against in vitro tumor cell lines than adriamycin. FD-895 had the same IC50values against parent and adriamycin resistant HL-60 cells.A major drawback to cancer chemotherapy is that many tumors are either intrinsically resistant to the compoundor develop resistance over the course of treatment. Treatment with chemotherapeutic agents generally results only in temporary remission of tumor disease in the clinic.It is also well knownexperimentally1 '2) that mammalian cells selected for resistance to a single cytotoxic natural product drug can becomenot only resistant to the agent used but also cross-resistant to a wide range of structurally and functionally unrelated antibiotics and alkaloids. For these reasons the developmentof chemotherapeutic agents equally effective against malignant and resistant cells has been desired world wide for overcoming tumor disease. From this standpoint, we have explored natural product drugs effective against multidrug resistant cells.In the course of our screening program using adriamycin resistant HL-60cells to discover low molecular compoundsproduced in microbial fermentation broths and capable of circumventing multidrug resistance, we have discovered a new 12-membered macrolide FD-895 (Fig. 1)

FD‐891 is a 16‐membered cytotoxic antibiotic macrolide that is especially active against human leukemia such as HL‐60 and Jurkat cells. We identified the FD‐891 biosynthetic (gfs) gene cluster from the producer Streptomyces graminofaciens A‐8890 by using typical modular type I polyketide synthase (PKS) genes as probes. The gfs gene cluster contained five typical modular type I PKS genes (gfsA, B, C, D, and E), a cytochrome P450 gene (gfsF), a methyltransferase gene (gfsG), and a regulator gene (gfsR). The gene organization of PKSs agreed well with the basic polyketide skeleton of FD‐891 including the oxidation states and α‐alkyl substituent determined by the substrate specificities of the acyltransferase (AT) domains. To clarify the involvement of the gfs genes in the FD‐891 biosynthesis, the P450 gfsF gene was inactivated; this resulted in the loss of FD‐891 production. Instead, the gfsF gene‐disrupted mutant accumulated a novel FD‐891 analogue 25‐O‐methyl‐FD‐892, which lacked the epoxide and the hydroxyl group of FD‐891. Furthermore, the recombinant GfsF enzyme coexpressed with putidaredoxin and putidaredoxin reductase converted 25‐O‐methyl‐FD‐892 into FD‐891. In the course of the GfsF reaction, 10‐deoxy‐FD‐891 was isolated as an enzymatic reaction intermediate, which was also converted into FD‐891 by GfsF. Therefore, it was clearly found that the cytochrome P450 GfsF catalyzes epoxidation and hydroxylation in a stepwise manner in the FD‐891 biosynthesis. These results clearly confirmed that the identified gfs genes are responsible for the biosynthesis of FD‐891 in S. graminofaciens.

Background: Influenza virus RNA polymerase is a multifunctional enzyme that catalyses both transcription and replication of the RNA genome. The function of the influenza virus RNA polymerase PA subunit in viral replication is poorly understood, although the enzyme is known to be required for cRNA 3 vRNA synthesis. The protease related activity of PA has been discussed ever since protease-inducing activity was demonstrated in transfection experiments.

To enzymatically synthesize active metabolites of vitamin D3, we screened about 500 bacterial strains and 450 fungal strains, of which 12 strains were able to convert vitamin D3 to 1 alpha,25-dihydroxyvitamin D3 [1 alpha,25(OH)2D3] via 25-hydroxyvitamin D3 [25(OH)D3]. The conversion activity was only detected in strains belonging to the genus Amycolata among all the organisms tested. A preparative-scale conversion of vitamin D3 to 25(OH)D3 and 1 alpha,25(OH)2D3 in a 200-1 tank fermentor using A. autotrophica FERM BP-1573 was accomplished, yielding 8.3 mg 25(OH)D3/l culture and 0.17 mg 1 alpha,25(OH)2D3/l culture. A related compound, vitamin D2, could be also converted to 25-hydroxyvitamin D2 and 1 alpha,25-dihydroxyvitamin D2 using the same strain. The cytochrome P-450 of FERM BP-1573 was detected by reduced CO difference spectra in whole-cell suspensions. Vitamin D3 in the culture induced cytochrome P-450 and the conversion activity simultaneously, suggesting that the hydroxylation at C-25 of vitamin D3 and at C-1 of 25(OH)D3 originates from cytochrome P-450.

No abstract

The absolute stereochemistry of FD-594 1, a new cytotoxic antibiotic, was determined by X-ray diffraction, and its conformation was studied by CD and NMR spectroscopy. The aglycon part of 1 was found to have (3R,6S,7S) configuration. Particularly interesting was the solvent-dependent atropisomerism of 1 and related compounds. The CD spectra of 1 exhibited in two solvent systems almost opposite mirror-image curves depending on the solvent. While a large negative Cotton effect (Deltaepsilon = -33.9, 279 nm) was observed in CHCl(3), a similar positive Cotton effect (Deltaepsilon = 38.9, 279 nm) appeared in methanol most probably due to dramatic conformational changes. Similar chiroptical reversal was observed in aglycon 2 and aglycon methyl ether 4. These results can be best described in terms of solvent-dependent atropisomerism. This constitutes the first observation of solvent-dependent atropisomerism of a natural product. The crucial factor that perturbs the stable conformation in different solvents is discussed on the basis of molecular mechanics calculations.

The structures ofstachybotrin C and parvisporin have been determined by spectroscopic analyses and chemical derivatization. Stachybotrin C contains a unique pyrano-isoindolinone ring system, while parvisporin has a hydroxyl farnesyl phenol structure. StachybotrinC and parvisporin are novel neuritogenic compounds isolated from the culture broth of Stachybotrys parvispora F4708. Their taxonomy, fermentation, isolation and physico-chemical properties were reported in the preceding paper1}. In this publication, we describe the structure determination of stachybotrin C (1) and parvisporin (2). ResultsStructural Studies of 1