Work

A novel locus for mycelial aggregation forms a gateway to improved Streptomyces cell factories

Year: 2015

Type: article

Abstract: BACKGROUND: Streptomycetes produce a plethora of natural products including antibiotics and anticancer drugs, as well as many industrial enzymes. Their mycelial life style is a major bottleneck for industrial exploitation and over decades strain improvement programs have selected production strains with better growth properties. Uncovering the nature of the underlying mutations should allow the ready transfer of desirable traits to other production hosts. RESULTS: Here we report that the mat gene cluster, which was identified through reverse engineering of a non-pelleting mutant selected in a chemostat, is key to pellet formation of Streptomyces lividans. Deletion of matA or matB, which encode putative polysaccharide synthases, effects mycelial metamorphosis, with very small and open mycelia. Growth rate and productivity of the matAB null mutant were increased by over 60% as compared to the wild-type strain. CONCLUSION: Here, we present a way to counteract pellet formation by streptomycetes, which is one of the major bottlenecks in their industrial application. The mat locus is an ideal target for rational strain design approaches aimed at improving streptomycetes as industrial production hosts.

Source: Microbial Cell Factories

DOI: 10.1186/s12934-015-0224-6

Authors: Dino van Dissel, Dennis Claessen, Martin Roth, Gilles P van Wezel

Institutions: Leiden University, Leibniz-Institut für Naturstoff-Forschung und Infektionsbiologie e. V. - Hans-Knöll-Institut (HKI)

Language: English

Topic: Microbial Natural Products and Biosynthesis

Subfield: Pharmacology

Field: Medicine

Domain: Health Sciences

SDG: Industry, innovation and infrastructure

Open Access status: gold

Estimated APC paid: $3,590