Overexpression of the putative extracytoplasmic function sigma (σ) factor FujE enhances FK506 production in Streptomyces sp. strain KCCM 11116P

Activation of microbial secondary metabolic pathways: Avenues and challenges

Microbial natural products are a tremendous source of new bioactive chemical entities for drug discovery. Next generation sequencing has revealed an unprecedented genomic potential for production of secondary metabolites by diverse micro-organisms found in the environment and in the microbiota. Genome mining has further led to the discovery of numerous uncharacterized 'cryptic' metabolic pathways in the classical producers of natural products such as Actinobacteria and fungi. These biosynthetic gene clusters may code for improved biologically active metabolites, but harnessing the full genetic potential has been hindered by the observation that many of the pathways are 'silent' under laboratory conditions. Here we provide an overview of the various biotechnological methodologies, which can be divided to pleiotropic, biosynthetic gene cluster specific, and targeted genome-wide approaches that have been developed for the awakening of microbial secondary metabolic pathways.

Effect of overexpression of endogenous and exogenous Streptomyces antibiotic regulatory proteins on tacrolimus (FK506) production in Streptomyces sp. KCCM11116P

Overexpression of SARPs enhanced FK506 production in Streptomyces sp. KCCM1116P. The endogenous SARPs improved production titer, whereas the exogenous SARP enhanced productivity at the early fermentation stage.