Identification of biosynthetic genes for the β-carboline alkaloid kitasetaline and production of the fluorinated derivatives by heterologous expression

© 2019, Society for Industrial Microbiology and Biotechnology. β-Carboline alkaloids exhibit a broad spectrum of pharmacological and biological activities and are widely distributed in nature. Genetic information on the biosynthetic mechanism of β-carboline alkaloids has not been accumulated in bact...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Shohei Ueda, Haruo Ikeda, Takushi Namba, Yukinori Ikejiri, Yuri Nishimoto, Masayoshi Arai, Takuya Nihira, Shigeru Kitani
Other Authors: Osaka University
Format: Article
Published: 2020
Subjects:
Online Access:https://repository.li.mahidol.ac.th/handle/123456789/50180
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Institution: Mahidol University
Description
Summary:© 2019, Society for Industrial Microbiology and Biotechnology. β-Carboline alkaloids exhibit a broad spectrum of pharmacological and biological activities and are widely distributed in nature. Genetic information on the biosynthetic mechanism of β-carboline alkaloids has not been accumulated in bacteria, because there are only a few reports on the microbial β-carboline compounds. We previously isolated kitasetaline, a mercapturic acid derivative of a β-carboline compound, from the genetically modified Kitasatospora setae strain and found a plausible biosynthetic gene cluster for kitasetaline. Here, we identified and characterized three kitasetaline (ksl) biosynthetic genes for the formation of the β-carboline core structure and a gene encoding mycothiol-S-conjugate amidase for the modification of the N-acetylcysteine moiety by using heterologous expression. The proposed model of kitasetaline biosynthesis shows unique enzymatic systems for β-carboline alkaloids. In addition, feeding fluorotryptophan to the heterologous Streptomyces hosts expressing the ksl genes led to the generation of unnatural β-carboline alkaloids exerting novel/potentiated bioactivities.