Minicystis rosea gen. nov., sp. nov., a polyunsaturated fatty acid-rich and steroid-producing soil myxobacterium.

A bacterial strain designated SBNa008(T) was isolated from a Philippine soil sample. It exhibited the general characteristics associated with myxobacteria, such as swarming of Gram-negative vegetative rod cells, fruiting body and myxospore formation and predatory behaviour in lysing micro-organisms. The novel strain was characterized as mesophilic, chemoheterotrophic and aerobic.

A highly unusual polyketide synthase directs dawenol polyene biosynthesis in Stigmatella aurantiaca.

Enormous progress in the field of polyketide biosynthesis has led to the establishment of rules for general text book biosynthetic logic and consequently to the assumption that biosynthetic genes can be easily correlated with the corresponding natural products. However, non-textbook examples of polyketide assembly continue to be discovered suggesting the gene to product and product to gene predictions need improvement, especially as they are increasingly used in the post-genomic era. Here, we analyzed the genomic blueprint of a myxobacterial multi-producer of secondary metabolites, Stigmatella aurantiaca DW4/3-1, for its biosynthetic potential by genome-mining.

Exploring chemical diversity of α-pyrone antibiotics: molecular basis of myxopyronin biosynthesis.

Myxopyronins and corallopyronins are structurally related α-pyrone antibiotics from myxobacteria. They are thought to represent a highly promising compound class for the development of broad-spectrum antibacterial therapeutic agents, because of their ability to inhibit RNA polymerase through interaction with the "switch region", a recently identified novel drug target. Here we describe the identification and characterization of the myxopyronin biosynthetic pathway from Myxococcus fulvus Mx f50.