Abstract
Neomycins are a group of aminoglycoside antibiotics with both clinical and agricultural applications. To elucidate the regulatory mechanism of neomycin biosynthesis, we completed draft genome sequencing of a neomycin producer Streptomyces fradiae CGMCC 4.7387 from marine sediments, and the neomycin biosynthesis gene cluster was identified. Inactivation of the afsA-g gene encoding a γ-butyrolactone (GBL) synthase in S. fradiae CGMCC 4.7387 resulted in a significant decrease of neomycin production. Quantitative RT-PCR analysis revealed that the transcriptional level of neoR and the aphA-neoGH operon were reduced in the afsA-g::aac(3)IV mutant. Interestingly, a conserved binding site of AdpA, a key activator in the GBL regulatory cascade, was discovered upstream of neoR, a putative regulatory gene encoding a protein with an ATPase domain and a tetratricopeptide repeat domain. When neoR was inactivated, the neomycin production was reduced about 40% in comparison with the WT strain. Quantitative RT-PCR analysis revealed that the transcriptional levels of genes in the aphA-neoGH operon were reduced clearly in the neoR::aac(3)IV mutant. Finally, the titers of neomycin were improved considerably by overexpression of afsA-g and neoR in S. fradiae CGMCC 4.7387.
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Acknowledgements
This work was funded in part by the Ministry of Science and Technology of China (2015CB150600) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31370095 and 31522001). Yihua Chen is an awardee for the ‘Hundred Talents Program’ of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
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Meng, X., Wang, W., Xie, Z. et al. Neomycin biosynthesis is regulated positively by AfsA-g and NeoR in Streptomyces fradiae CGMCC 4.7387. Sci. China Life Sci. 60, 980–991 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11427-017-9120-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11427-017-9120-8