Physical identification of a chromosomal locus encoding biosynthetic genes for the lipopeptide calcium-dependent antibiotic (CDA) of Streptomyces coelicolor A3(2).

Putative peptide-synthetase-encoding DNA fragments were isolated from the Streptomyces coelicolor A3(2) chromosome using a PCR-based approach and mapped to a single approximately 35 kb segment. In integrative transformation experiments, DNA fragments from this region disrupted production of the calcium-dependent antibiotic (CDA) and had sequences characteristic of non-ribosomal peptide synthetases, thus proving that the cda locus had been cloned.