An Engineered Allele of afsQ1 Facilitates the Discovery and Investigation of Cryptic Natural Products.

New approaches to antimicrobial discovery are needed to address the growing threat of antibiotic resistance. The Streptomyces genus, a proven source of antibiotics, is recognized as having a large reservoir of untapped secondary metabolic genes, many of which are likely to produce uncharacterized compounds. However, most of these compounds are currently inaccessible, as they are not expressed under standard laboratory conditions.

Tetrodecamycin: An unusual and interesting tetronate antibiotic.

The tetrodecamycins are a group of secondary metabolites that are characterized by the presence of a tetronate ring in their structure. Originally discovered for their antibiotic activity against Photobacterium damselae ssp. piscicida, the causative agent of pseudotuberculosis in fish, this family of molecules has also been shown to have potent antibiotic activity against methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus.

Biosynthetic Genes for the Tetrodecamycin Antibiotics.

Unlabelled: We recently described 13-deoxytetrodecamycin, a new member of the tetrodecamycin family of antibiotics. A defining feature of these molecules is the presence of a five-membered lactone called a tetronate ring. By sequencing the genome of a producer strain, Streptomyces sp.

13-Deoxytetrodecamycin, a new tetronate ring-containing antibiotic that is active against multidrug-resistant Staphylococcus aureus.

WAC04657 is a wild-isolate Streptomyces that has antibiotic activities against multidrug-resistant Gram-negative and Gram-positive pathogens. From a solid-agar culture of this organism we isolated 13-deoxytetrodecamycin, a novel antibacterial molecule. It is one of at least three distinct antimicrobial compounds produced by this strain.