Genome sequence analysis of actinomycetes and its effective use in the discovery of secondary metabolite biosynthetic genes

2014 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project Area: Biosynthetic machinery: Deciphering and regulating the system for bioactive metabolite diversification
• Project/Area Number: 22108010
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research on Innovative Areas (Research in a proposed research area)
• Allocation Type: Single-year Grants
• Review Section: Science and Engineering
• Research Institution: National Institute of Infectious Diseases
• Principal Investigator: ISHIKAWA Jun 国立感染症研究所, 真菌部, 室長 (40202957)
• Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha): HOSHINO Yasutaka 国立感染症研究所, 真菌部, 主任研究官 (40399457)
• Project Period (FY): 2010-04-01 – 2015-03-31
• Keywords: ゲノムシークエンス / 二次代謝産物 / 生合成遺伝子

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Actinomycetes produce various medically important secondary metabolites such as antibiotics, anticancer drugs, etc. Recent genome analyses revealed that their ability to produce such metabolites was 10-fold higher than previously known. To unveil their hidden ability, we searched for Pfam domains in all proteins coded in four well-annotated actinomycete genomes. The result indicated that there were Pfam domains only or frequently found in secondary metabolism related proteins. We developed a web tool, 2ndFind, to find secondary metabolite biosynthetic genes using those Pfam domains as the indicator. The 2ndFind is freely available at the URL http://biosyn.nih.go.jp/2ndfind/.

Free Research Field

微生物ゲノム科学