Generation of new drug seed natural products from entomopathogenic microorganism by activating silent biosynthetic gene clusters

2016 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 26460117
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Natural medicines
• Research Institution: The University of Tokyo (2015-2016); Tohoku University (2014)
• Principal Investigator: ASAI Teigo 東京大学, 大学院総合文化研究科, 准教授 (60572310)
• Project Period (FY): 2014-04-01 – 2017-03-31
• Keywords: 天然物化学 / 二次代謝物 / 糸状菌 / 休眠遺伝子 / 薬理活性天然物 / 二次代謝活性化 / リボゾーム工学 / 生合成

Outline of Final Research Achievements

In this study, we aimed to develop several methods for activating silent biosynthetic gene cluster to find a variety of novel natural products and biological active compounds to be drug seeds. First we made mutants with hygromycin B resistance of various fungi by using chemical mutagentic approach and evaluated their ability of secondary metabolite production. From the results, we found that the use of mutants with hygromycin B resistance is significantly effective to stimuli fungal silent biosynthetic pathways. Next, we screened a large number of entomopathogenic fungi and fungi living in insects by applying the newly developped method in addition to chemical epigenetics and successfully obtained a diverse novel natural products.

Free Research Field

天然物化学