期刊名称:Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
印刷版ISSN:0027-8424
电子版ISSN:1091-6490
出版年度:2002
卷号:99
期号:22
页码:14002-14007
DOI:10.1073/pnas.222481399
语种:English
出版社:The National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
摘要:Many drug candidates from marine and terrestrial invertebrates are suspected metabolites of uncultured bacterial symbionts. The antitumor polyketides of the pederin family, isolated from beetles and sponges, are an example. Drug development from such sources is commonly hampered by low yields and the difficulty of sustaining invertebrate cultures. To obtain insight into the true producer and find alternative supplies of these rare drug candidates, the putative pederin biosynthesis genes were cloned from total DNA of Paederus fuscipes beetles, which use this compound for chemical defense. Sequence analysis of the gene cluster and adjacent regions revealed the presence of ORFs with typical bacterial architecture and homologies. The ped cluster, which is present only in beetle specimens with high pederin content, is located on a 54-kb region bordered by transposase pseudogenes and encodes a mixed modular polyketide synthase/nonribosomal peptide synthetase. Notably, none of the modules contains regions with homology to acyltransferase domains, but two copies of isolated monodomain acyltransferase genes were found at the upstream end of the cluster. In line with an involvement in pederin biosynthesis, the upstream cluster region perfectly mirrors pederin structure. The unexpected presence of additional polyketide synthase/nonribosomal peptide synthetase modules reveals surprising insights into the evolutionary relationship between pederin-type pathways in beetles and sponges.