Metabolic engineering of actinomycetes for natural product discovery

Erin E. Drufva, Tien T. Sword, Constance B. Bailey

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapterpeer-review

1 Scopus citations

Abstract

Actinomycetes are an incredibly prolific source of therapeutic secondary metabolites. Indeed, over 50% of currently used commercial antibiotics are of actinomycetal origin. However, discovery has slowed significantly since the so-called golden age of antibiotics in the 1940s-1960s. The expansion of genome sequencing has revealed many more undiscovered natural products which are often cryptic, or not produced under standard laboratory conditions due to their finely tuned ecological roles in their natural contexts. Advances in synthetic biology approaches have revealed new strategies to manipulate actinomycetes and perform screens to uncover some of these cryptic natural products. Additionally, such strategies provide the tools to generate analogs of natural products through manipulation of precursor flux and biosynthetic enzymes.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationNatural Products from Actinomycetes
Subtitle of host publicationDiversity, Ecology and Drug Discovery
PublisherSpringer Nature
Pages267-307
Number of pages41
ISBN (Electronic)9789811661327
ISBN (Print)9789811661310
DOIs
StatePublished - Apr 15 2022
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Cryptic natural products
  • Heterologous expression
  • Streptomyces
  • Synthetic biology

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