群感效应与链霉菌次生代谢调控

群感效应是细菌协调群体行为的一种外界信号传递机制,在细菌中普遍存在,参与细胞的多种生理过程。链霉菌中也存在群感效应,在抗生素等次生代谢产物的生物合成中起重要的调控作用;从自诱导信号分子的结构到信号传递机制都存在一定多样性,其中以A-因子为代表的γ-丁酸内酯类信号分子的作用机制研究最为深入。近几年在链霉菌中发现的PI-因子、M-因子以及一些特定的代谢产物则代表几类结构较新颖的信号分子,通过群感效应机制调控次生代谢过程;链霉菌中还发现胆固醇氧化酶、甘油等分子具有信号分子特征,不排除是通过群感效应来参与抗生素生物合成调控。本文主要就参与链霉菌次生代谢调控的几类群感效应系统的研究状况进行综述,重点阐述各类群感信号分子的结构和信号传递机制的不同,并对链霉菌群感效应的研究趋势以及在抗生素高产菌遗传育种中的应用前景进行了展望。

Quorum sensing involved in the regulation of secondary metabolism in streptomycetes--a review

Quorum sensing as an extracellular signal transduction system is distributed widely among many bacteria to coordinate their behaviors or actions by mediating gene expression, and plays key roles in many physiological processes and pathogenicity. Quorum sensing was also observed among many streptomycetes, as an important regulatory mechanism of secondary metabolite biosynthesis and/or cell differentiation, and displayed certain diversity of the autoinducer structures and action mechanisms. The participation of A-factor-driven quorum sensing systems in the secondary metabolism has been extensively studied, and triggered the identification of a major signal class featured with gamma-butyrolactone core. Additionally, PI-factor, M-factor and certain small antibiotic molecules recently found in streptomycetes clearly could play important roles in the biosynthetic pathways of some antibiotics, and might represent extracellular autoinducer classes with novel structures. Meanwhile, some specific products of streptomycetes including cholesterol oxidase and glycerol have been identified to function as cell-signaling molecules which modulate the secondary metabolic activities in streptomycetes, probably by the mode of quorum sensing. Here, we reviewed research advances on quorum sensing systems involved in the accumulation of secondary metabolites in streptomycetes, mainly focusing on the clarification of their action modes and structural diversity of autoinducers. We also prospected the research trends in this field and application of autoinducers through quorum-sensing in metabolic engineering of natural products.