The cvn8 Conservon System Is a Global Regulator of Specialized Metabolism in Streptomyces coelicolor during Interspecies Interactions
Year: 2021
Type: article
Abstract: Interactions between different species of actinomycete bacteria often trigger one of the strains to produce specialized metabolites, such as antibiotics. However, how this induction occurs at the genetic level is poorly understood. Using transcriptomic methods, we show that an unusual regulatory system, known as a conservon system, is responsible for regulating expression of multiple specialized metabolite biosynthetic gene clusters in the organism Streptomyces coelicolor during interactions. Conservon systems are unusual because they appear to employ small GTPases as an important component of their signaling cascades. Small GTPases are common in eukaryotic signaling pathways, but the results presented here are notable since they implicate a system that includes a small GTPase in global gene regulation in a bacterium. Mutants lacking this conservon system also showed abnormally high expression of a gene cluster involved in making an unknown specialized metabolite, suggesting that conservon mutants might be useful for driving natural product discovery.
Source: mSystems
Institutions: University of California, Berkeley, Broad Institute
Language: English
Subfield: Pharmacology
Field: Medicine
Domain: Health Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $3,500
OpenAlex ID: W3206145437