Regulation of daptomycin biosynthesis in : new insights from genomic analysis and synthetic biology to accelerate lipopeptide discovery and commercial production.

Covering 2005-2024Daptomycin is a clinically important antibiotic that treats Gram-positive infections of skin and skin structure, bacteremia, and right-sided endocarditis, including those caused by methicillin-resistant (MRSA). Daptomycin is now generic, and many companies are involved in manufacturing and commercializing this life-saving medicine. There has been much recent interest in improving the daptomycin fermentation of by mutagenesis, metabolic engineering, and synthetic biology methods.

Genome mining for drug discovery: progress at the front end.

Microbial genome mining for drug discovery and development has been accelerating in recent years, driven by technical advancements in genome sequencing, bioinformatics, metabolomics/metabologenomics, and synthetic biology. Microbial genome mining is a multistep process that starts with the sequencing of microbes that encode multiple secondary metabolites and identifying new and novel secondary metabolite biosynthetic gene clusters (BGCs) to pursue. The initial steps in the process are critical for the overall success, and they encompass the most innovative new technologies to revitalize natural product discovery.

Genome mining for drug discovery: cyclic lipopeptides related to daptomycin.

The cyclic lipopeptide antibiotics structurally related to daptomycin were first reported in the 1950s. Several have common lipopeptide initiation, elongation, and termination mechanisms. Initiation requires the use of a fatty acyl-AMP ligase (FAAL), a free-standing acyl carrier protein (ACP), and a specialized condensation (CIII) domain on the first NRPS elongation module to couple the long chain fatty acid to the first amino acid.