Secondary metabolite Screening by combined-culture

2016 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 25292046
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B)
• Allocation Type: Partial Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Applied microbiology
• Research Institution: The University of Tokyo
• Principal Investigator: Onaka Hiroyasu 東京大学, 農学生命科学研究科, 教授 (80315829)
• Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha): 宮本 憲二 慶應義塾大学, 理工学部, 准教授 (60360111)
• Project Period (FY): 2013-04-01 – 2017-03-31
• Keywords: 複合培養 / 生合成 / 放線菌 / 抗生物質 / 共培養 / ミコール酸 / 遺伝子発現 / 二次代謝

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Streptomyces have the potential to produce more than 30 secondary metabolites; however, the expression of most metabolite biosynthetic gene clusters is cryptic or silent. Indeed, the expression of these genes is conditional and dependent on culture conditions. To activate such gene clusters, many methods have been developed. Combined-culture which is developed by our group is a coculture method to activate secondary metabolism in Streptomyces. The activator strains are mycolic acid-containing bacteria, and about 90% of Streptomyces species show changes in secondary metabolism in combined-culture compared with pure culture. In this project, we revealed that pigment induction was mediated by cell-to-cell physical contact. In addition, we applied combined-culture to new secondary metabolite screening, and then new secondary metabolites (5-aTHQ, chojyalactone, arcyriaflavin E, niizalactam) are discovered. Thus, combined-culture may have applications in natural product-based drug discovery.

Free Research Field

応用微生物学