A strategy for cloning glycosyltransferase genes involved in natural product biosynthesis.

The soil-borne and marine gram-positive Actinomycetes are a particularly rich source of carbohydrate-containing metabolites. With the advent of molecular tools and recombinant methods applicable to Actinomycetes, it has become feasible to investigate the biosynthesis of glycosylated compounds at genetic and biochemical levels, which has finally set the basis for engineering novel natural product derivatives. Glycosyltransferases (GT) are key enzymes for the biosynthesis of many valuable natural products that contain sugar moieties and they are most important for drug engineering.