羊毛硫肽的高通量工程改造方法新进展

羊毛硫肽(lanthipeptide)是由核糖体合成并经翻译后修饰产生的肽类天然产物,具有丰富的分子结构和多样的生物活性。新型羊毛硫肽是活性药物的重要来源,可以通过基因组挖掘和工程改造获得。羊毛硫肽前体肽由基因编码,同时其合成酶具有较高的底物杂泛性。基于这些特征,可以对羊毛硫肽的生物合成过程开展高通量工程改造,从而快速获得新的羊毛硫肽衍生物。综述了近些年高通量构建和筛选羊毛硫肽衍生物的新方法:介绍了非天然氨基酸引入、组合式生物合成、嵌合前导肽等文库构建技术;讨论了细胞表面展示、反向双杂交、细胞自裂解、无细胞(cell-free)体系等方法在结构与活性筛选中的应用;对基于自动化合成生物技术开展羊毛硫肽的规模化工程改造进行了展望。     

棒状链霉菌中隐性羊毛硫肽CLA 124的半体外生物合成

摘要:【目的】利用半体外生物合成方法获得棒状链霉菌中的隐性羊毛硫肽,为放线菌中羊毛硫肽资源的挖掘提供借鉴。【方法】利用nisin修饰系统,在大肠杆菌(Escherichia coli)中对隐性羊毛硫肽的核心肽进行体内修饰。修饰后产物经亲和层析和高效液相色谱(HPLC)纯化后,体外酶切反应切除前导肽,利用MALDITOFMS检测核心肽的脱水情况,并结合二级质谱解析其成环结构。【结果】获得了新的羊毛硫肽CLA 124,其核心肽脱去了4分子水,并形成2个硫醚键和一个二硫键。【结论】半体外生物合成方法可用于放线菌来源隐性羊毛硫肽的资源挖掘。     

Streptomyces coelicolor A3(2)中新颖Ⅰ型羊毛硫肽的挖掘及异源表达

【目的】Ⅰ型羊毛硫肽通常具有广泛的生物活性,且抑菌机制独特,较少产生耐药性,因而在临床上具有很好的应用前景。本文对Streptomyces coelicolor A3(2)基因组上2个新颖的Ⅰ型羊毛硫肽生物合成基因簇进行研究,以实现目标羊毛硫肽的表达。【方法】首先,通过antiSMASH分析S. coelicolor A3(2)基因组序列,挖掘羊毛硫肽生物合成基因簇,使用BLAST进行基因功能注释,选择可能参与生物合成过程的基因;然后利用基因组装技术构建异源表达质粒,通过接合转移在链霉菌底盘细胞中进行异源表达;最后对发酵产物进行高效液相色谱、质谱及生物活性检测。【结果】通过添加启动子元件重构S. coelicolor A3(2)上基因簇3 (8.9 kb)和基因簇24 (9.0 kb),得到pYES-ColE1-SCO-cluster3和pYES-ColE1-SCO-cluster24。pYES-ColE1-SCO-cluster3在底盘细胞Streptomyces coelicolor M1152和Streptomycessp. A14中成功表达,得到潜在目标化合物coelin 3;pYES-ColE1-SCO-cluster24在底盘细胞Streptomyces sp. ZM13中成功表达,得到潜在目标化合物coelin 24。其中coelin 3对Bacillus subtilis 168和Escherichia coli ATCC 25922具有抑制作用,并且抑菌圈均达到28 mm。【结论】本研究成功使用启动子激活和异源表达策略实现了coelin 3和coelin 24的表达和活性测试,为后续新颖的羊毛硫肽结构解析和作用机制研究奠定了基础。     

放线菌来源的羊毛硫肽研究进展

羊毛硫肽(lanthipeptide)是一类由核糖体合成并经翻译后修饰的含羊毛硫氨酸或β-甲基羊毛硫氨酸的多肽。近年来,放线菌来源的羊毛硫肽因其突出的抗菌活性和罕见的生物活性而备受关注。本文重点对放线菌来源的不同类型的羊毛硫肽的结构特征及其特性进行了综述,讨论了生物或化学方法修饰天然羊毛硫肽和基因组挖掘发现结构新颖的羊毛硫肽在开发符合实际应用需求的放线菌来源的羊毛硫肽中的应用,并对放线菌来源的羊毛硫肽的应用潜力进行了总结和展望。     

羊毛硫抗生素研究进展

羊毛硫抗生素(lantibiotics)是一类独特的肽抗生素,具有广泛的化学结构多样性,含有罕见的羊毛硫氨酸和甲基羊毛硫氨酸。羊毛硫抗生素前体肽需经过复杂的翻译后修饰、转运、引导肽切除等加工后才能形成具有活性的抗生素,其独特的作用方式,也是人们一直关注的焦点。对羊毛硫抗生素的结构特点、分类、生物合成、发挥生物活性时的作用方式等进行了综述。     

前导肽切割位点对Ⅱ类羊毛硫细菌素切割酶活性的影响

【背景】Ⅱ类羊毛硫细菌素大多是由革兰氏阳性菌的核糖体合成并经过翻译后修饰产生的小肽,其生物合成的最后一步是由转运蛋白LanTN端的肽酶结构域对前导肽进行切割,释放出有活性的羊毛硫细菌素,但目前关于该类羊毛硫细菌素前导肽的切割机制尚不清楚。【目的】考察前导肽切割位点对不同链球菌来源的肽酶结构域BovT150和SboT150酶切活性的影响。【方法】运用不依赖连接酶的定点突变技术构建前导肽切割位点突变的前体蛋白表达载体,在大肠杆菌(Escherichia coli)中分别表达纯化野生型前体(Bov Am和Sbo Am)、突变型前体及对应的切割酶(Bov T150和Sbo T150),构建体外酶切体系,利用HPLC、抑菌活性分析和MALDI-TOF MS检测前导肽的切除情况。【结果】BovT150不仅能够切割Bov Am的GG和GA位点,也能切割Sbo Am的GG和GA位点,并且对切割位点为Gly的前体切割活性较高;Sbo T150仅能切割Sbo Am的GG和GA位点,而对切割位点为Ala的活性较高。【结论】II类羊毛硫细菌素前导肽切割位点氨基酸残基的改变不同程度地影响切割酶的切割效率。     

解淀粉芽胞杆菌WS-8中LanM基因的克隆及生物信息学分析

克隆解淀粉芽胞杆菌WS-8 (Bacillus amyloliquefaciens WS-8)中的第二类羊毛硫肽合成酶LanM基因,并对LanM编码蛋白的理化性质及结构特征进行分析。设计LanM基因(登录号:APQ49580.1)扩增引物,提取解淀粉芽胞杆菌WS-8基因组DNA,以其作为模板进行PCR扩增。综合多种软件预测和分析LanM编码蛋白的理化性质、结构域和二级结构等。采用邻位连接法(Neighbor-Joining, NJ)构建系统发育树来分析LanM所编码蛋白与同源蛋白的亲缘关系,以及各蛋白结构域的亲缘关系。PCR扩增出的目的条带约为2 840 bp,通过测序鉴定,序列信息与基因组数据一致。LanM基因编码961个氨基酸,等电点为6.07,相对分子质量为111.485 1 kD。LanM编码的蛋白属于亲水性蛋白,无信号肽。该蛋白含有LANC_like结构域,其二级结构主要由螺旋结构和环状结构组成。系统发育树的分析结果表明LANC_like结构域和LanM同源蛋白的亲缘关系一致。解淀粉芽胞杆菌WS-8中存在第二类羊毛硫肽合成酶LanM基因。揭示了羊毛硫肽合成酶LanM发挥脱水和环化作用的理化性质和结构基础,以期为进一步阐明羊毛硫肽合成酶的生物学功能提供参考。     

枯草芽孢杆菌抗菌肽生物合成的研究进展

革兰氏阳性菌模式生物--枯草芽孢杆菌能分泌多种肽类及由肽类衍生的抗菌活性物质,按合成途径不同,可分为核糖体肽和非核糖体肽。其中,非核糖体肽分子量较小,一般为3000Da以下,其生物合成是通过多功能复合酶系--非核糖体肽链合成酶来完成的,多发生在菌体生长停止之后;而核糖体肽分子量较大,其合成多于菌体快速生长时期。非核糖体肽链合成酶和核糖体肽的合成及其调控均需基因参与,而这一系列基因就构成了各种抗菌肽生物合成的基因簇。对核糖体肽和非核糖体肽的生物合成及其相关调控机制进行了综述。     

植物类MT与植物络合肽

金属硫蛋白在哺乳动物的解毒方面民挥着重要作用,植物本身也存在类似的解毒机制。研究表明,植物存在基因编码的类ＭＴ,另外还有非基因编码的植物ＭＴ,又称植物络合肽,类ＭＴ在必需重金属离子（例如Ｚｎ＾２＋、Ｃｕ＾２＋）的代谢中挥着重要作用而植物络合肽在非必需重金属离子（例如Ｃｄ＾２＋）的解毒中起到关键作用。本文了类ＭＴ和植物络合肽之间的关系以及各自的生物合成途径、相关的结构与功能、在植物中的分布等。     

V型羊毛硫肽雷可肽的抑菌机制

【背景】雷可肽(Lexapeptide)为首例V型羊毛硫肽家族化合物,具有较好的抗革兰氏阳性菌活性,对耐甲氧西林金黄色葡萄球菌(Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus,MRSA)和表皮葡萄球菌(Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus epidermidis,MRSE)的抑制作用强于广泛应用的食品防腐剂乳酸链球菌素,其对pH和高温的稳定性也优于乳酸链球菌素,具有较好的应用前景。由于抑菌机制不明确,限制了雷可肽的开发应用。【目的】探究雷可肽抑菌作用特征以及作用机制,为雷可肽开发应用奠定基础。【方法】通过菌落计数法与Mg2+试验表征雷可肽抑菌动力学曲线;采用流式细胞仪和透射电子显微镜研究雷可肽在靶细胞表面的成孔性;利用高效液相色谱与基质辅助激光解吸电离的时间飞行质谱分析雷可肽处理对革兰氏阳性菌肽聚糖前体积累的影响。【结果】雷可肽在抑菌动力学上与乳酸链球菌素没有显著差别,但在更宽的Mg2+浓度范围内仍可保持抑菌活性。雷可肽处理后的细胞具有透过荧光染料的能力,生物型透射电镜观察到细胞发生破损。此外,在雷可肽作用后的细胞中检测到肽聚糖合成的前体尿嘧啶核苷二磷酸-N-乙酰胞壁酸五肽。【结论】雷可肽能够通过抑制细胞壁肽聚糖生物合成并造成细胞损伤进而获得通透性,以此来抑制革兰氏阳性菌生长。     

Revised Genome Sequence of Burkholderia thailandensis MSMB43 with Improved Annotation

There is growing interest in discovery of novel bioactive natural products from Burkholderia thailandensis. Here we report a significantly improved genome sequence and reannotation of Burkholderia thailandensis MSMB43, which will facilitate the discovery of new natural products through genome mining and studies of the metabolic versatility of this bacterium.     

Drug Discovery from Marine Microbes

The marine environment has been a source of more than 20,000 inspirational natural products discovered over the past 50 years. From these efforts, 9 approved drugs and 12 current clinical trial agents have been discovered, either as natural products or as molecules inspired from the natural product structure. To a significant degree, these have come from collections of marine invertebrates largely obtained from shallow-water tropical ecosystems. However, there is a growing recognition that marine invertebrates are oftentimes populated with enormous quantities of “associated” or symbiotic microorganisms and that microorganisms are the true metabolic sources of these most valuable of marine natural products. Also, because of the inherently multidisciplinary nature of this field, a high degree of innovation is characteristic of marine natural product drug discovery efforts.     

Recent advances in natural products exploitation in Streptomyces via synthetic biology

Natural products of microbial origin have proven to be the wellspring of clinically useful compounds for human therapeutics. Streptomyces species are predominant sources of bioactive compounds, most of which serve as potential drug candidates. While the exploitation of natural products has been severely reduced over the past two decades, the growing crisis of evolution and dissemination of drug resistant pathogens have again attracted great interest in this field. The emerging synthetic biology has been heralded as a new bioengineering platform to discover novel bioactive compounds and expand bioactive natural products diversity and production. Herein, we review recent advances in the natural products exploitation of Streptomyces with the applications of synthetic biology from three major aspects, including recently developed synthetic biology tools, natural products biosynthetic pathway engineering strategies as well as chassis host modifications.     

Science, Nature, and Tradition: The Mass-Marketing of Natural Medicine in Urban Ecuador

In the past 15 years, "natural" medicine has become increasingly popular in the southern Ecuadoran city of Cuenca. Natural medicine products, which are distinct from traditional herbal remedies, are commercially packaged and processed and sold in a number of retail outlets in the central shopping district. This article discusses the results of field research to determine the client base of natural medicine and the reasons for its growing popularity among the poorer classes in Ecuador. Using an interpretative framework that posits that medical products carry symbolic messages, I discuss the ways in which important themes of modern life in Ecuador are played out in the packaging and marketing of these products. This research supports the growing body of literature that argues against a medical-systems approach to analyzing medical plurality by highlighting the multiple ideologies found in Ecuadoran beliefs about commercial natural medicine. [alternative medicine, Ecuador, selfmedication]     

Expanded Natural Product Diversity Revealed by Analysis of Lanthipeptide-Like Gene Clusters in Actinobacteria

Lanthionine-containing peptides (lanthipeptides) are a rapidly growing family of polycyclic peptide natural products belonging to the large class of ribosomally synthesized and posttranslationally modified peptides (RiPPs). Lanthipeptides are widely distributed in taxonomically distant species, and their currently known biosynthetic systems and biological activities are diverse. Building on the recent natural product gene cluster family (GCF) project, we report here large-scale analysis of lanthipeptide-like biosynthetic gene clusters from Actinobacteria. Our analysis suggests that lanthipeptide biosynthetic pathways, and by extrapolation the natural products themselves, are much more diverse than currently appreciated and contain many different posttranslational modifications. Furthermore, lanthionine synthetases are much more diverse in sequence and domain topology than currently characterized systems, and they are used by the biosynthetic machineries for natural products other than lanthipeptides. The gene cluster families described here significantly expand the chemical diversity and biosynthetic repertoire of lanthionine-related natural products. Biosynthesis of these novel natural products likely involves unusual and unprecedented biochemistries, as illustrated by several examples discussed in this study. In addition, class IV lanthipeptide gene clusters are shown not to be silent, setting the stage to investigate their biological activities.     

Lessons learned from the transformation of natural product discovery to a genome-driven endeavor

Natural product discovery is currently undergoing a transformation from a phenotype-driven field to a genotype-driven one. The increasing availability of genome sequences, coupled with improved techniques for identifying biosynthetic gene clusters, has revealed that secondary metabolomes are strikingly vaster than previously thought. New approaches to correlate biosynthetic gene clusters with the compounds they produce have facilitated the production and isolation of a rapidly growing collection of what we refer to as “reverse-discovered” natural products, in analogy to reverse genetics. In this review, we present an extensive list of reverse-discovered natural products and discuss seven important lessons for natural product discovery by genome-guided methods: structure prediction, accurate annotation, continued study of model organisms, avoiding genome-size bias, genetic manipulation, heterologous expression, and potential engineering of natural product analogs.     

Basidiomycetes: A new source of secondary metabolites.

The area of natural products research is the most rapidly growing field of organic chemistry, due to the great technical developments in the isolation and identification techniques. Today, near to one million natural products -isolated from the most diverse living things- are known. Microorganisms are among the least-studied of these. Nevertheless, they offer large possibilities for the discovery of new structures and biological activities. Among the microorganisms, the Basidiomycetes present a production capacity and a range of biologically active metabolites, which have scarcely been investigated. The wide spectrum of natural products with biological activity produced by Basidiomycetes includes antimicrobial agents, antifungal, antiviral and cytotoxic activities, enzymes, plant growth regulators and flavors. These metabolites are generally grouped by their chemical origin, and the relationship between chemical structure and the different biological activities reported. The main objective of this review is to bring an updated revision of the numerous and interesting biosynthetic pathways from basidiomycetes.     

Carrier protein structure and recognition in polyketide and nonribosomal peptide biosynthesis

Carrier proteins, 80-100 residues in length, serve as information-rich platforms to present growing acyl and peptidyl chains as covalently tethered phosphopantetheinyl-thioester intermediates during the biosynthesis of fatty acid, polyketide, and nonribosomal natural products. Carrier proteins are recognized both in cis and in trans by partner catalytic domains that effect chain-elongating condensations, redox adjustments, other tailoring steps, and finally kinetically controlled disconnection and release of the mature natural product. Dissection of regions of carrier proteins that are specifically recognized by upstream and downstream catalytic partner proteins is deciphering the logic for multiprotein assembly line construction of these large classes of natural products.     

Listeria monocytogenes’ Step-Like Response to Sub-Lethal Concentrations of Nisin

Microbial safety of food products is often accomplished by the formulation of food-grade preservatives into the product. Because of the growing consumer demand for natural substances (including preservatives) in the composition of consumed foods, there is also a growing interest in the natural antimicrobial nisin, which has generally recognized as safe (GRAS) status for certain applications. During the products storage time, concentrations of preservative(s) are decreasing, which may eventually cause a serious problem in the food’s microbial safety. Here, for the first time we report on the non-linear response of a foodborne pathogen, Listeria monocytogenes, to sub-lethal concentrations of nisin.     

Biosynthesis of polyketides in heterologous hosts.

Polyketide natural products show great promise as medicinal agents. Typically the products of microbial secondary biosynthesis, polyketides are synthesized by an evolutionarily related but architecturally diverse family of multifunctional enzymes called polyketide synthases. A principal limitation for fundamental biochemical studies of these modular megasynthases, as well as for their applications in biotechnology, is the challenge associated with manipulating the natural microorganism that produces a polyketide of interest. To ameliorate this limitation, over the past decade several genetically amenable microbes have been developed as heterologous hosts for polyketide biosynthesis. Here we review the state of the art as well as the difficulties associated with heterologous polyketide production. In particular, we focus on two model hosts, Streptomyces coelicolor and Escherichia coli. Future directions for this relatively new but growing technological opportunity are also discussed.