Nadine Ziemert

The Natural Product Domain Seeker NaPDoS: A Phylogeny Based Bioinformatic Tool to Classify Secondary Metabolite Gene Diversity

New bioinformatic tools are needed to analyze the growing volume of DNA sequence data. This is especially true in the case of secondary metabolite biosynthesis, where the highly repetitive nature of the associated genes creates major challenges for accurate sequence assembly and analysis. Here we introduce the web tool Natural Product Domain Seeker (NaPDoS), which provides an automated method to assess the secondary metabolite biosynthetic gene diversity and novelty of strains or environments. NaPDoS analyses are based on the phylogenetic relationships of sequence tags derived from polyketide synthase (PKS) and non-ribosomal peptide synthetase (NRPS) genes, respectively. The sequence tags correspond to PKS-derived ketosynthase domains and NRPS-derived condensation domains and are compared to an internal database of experimentally characterized biosynthetic genes. NaPDoS provides a rapid mechanism to extract and classify ketosynthase and condensation domains from PCR products, genomes, and metagenomic datasets. Close database matches provide a mechanism to infer the generalized structures of secondary metabolites while new phylogenetic lineages provide targets for the discovery of new enzyme architectures or mechanisms of secondary metabolite assembly. Here we outline the main features of NaPDoS and test it on four draft genome sequences and two metagenomic datasets. The results provide a rapid method to assess secondary metabolite biosynthetic gene diversity and richness in organisms or environments and a mechanism to identify genes that may be associated with uncharacterized biochemistry.

Highly plastic genome of Microcystis aeruginosa PCC 7806, a ubiquitous toxic freshwater cyanobacterium

BackgroundThe colonial cyanobacterium Microcystis proliferates in a wide range of freshwater ecosystems and is exposed to changing environmental factors during its life cycle. Microcystis blooms are often toxic, potentially fatal to animals and humans, and may cause environmental problems. There has been little investigation of the genomics of these cyanobacteria.ResultsDeciphering the 5,172,804 bp sequence of Microcystis aeruginosa PCC 7806 has revealed the high plasticity of its genome: 11.7% DNA repeats containing more than 1,000 bases, 6.8% putative transposases and 21 putative restriction enzymes. Compared to the genomes of other cyanobacterial lineages, strain PCC 7806 contains a large number of atypical genes that may have been acquired by lateral transfers. Metabolic pathways, such as fermentation and a methionine salvage pathway, have been identified, as have genes for programmed cell death that may be related to the rapid disappearance of Microcystis blooms in nature. Analysis of the PCC 7806 genome also reveals striking novel biosynthetic features that might help to elucidate the ecological impact of secondary metabolites and lead to the discovery of novel metabolites for new biotechnological applications. M. aeruginosa and other large cyanobacterial genomes exhibit a rapid loss of synteny in contrast to other microbial genomes.ConclusionMicrocystis aeruginosa PCC 7806 appears to have adopted an evolutionary strategy relying on unusual genome plasticity to adapt to eutrophic freshwater ecosystems, a property shared by another strain of M. aeruginosa (NIES-843). Comparisons of the genomes of PCC 7806 and other cyanobacterial strains indicate that a similar strategy may have also been used by the marine strain Crocosphaera watsonii WH8501 to adapt to other ecological niches, such as oligotrophic open oceans.

Diversity and evolution of secondary metabolism in the marine actinomycete genus Salinispora

Significance Microbial natural products are a major source of new drug leads, yet discovery efforts are constrained by the lack of information describing the diversity and distributions of the associated biosynthetic pathways among bacteria. Using the marine actinomycete genus Salinispora as a model, we analyzed genome sequence data from 75 closely related strains. The results provide evidence for high levels of pathway diversity, with most being acquired relatively recently in the evolution of the genus. The distributions and evolutionary histories of these pathways provide insight into the mechanisms that generate new chemical diversity and the strategies used by bacteria to maximize their population-level capacity to produce diverse secondary metabolites. Access to genome sequence data has challenged traditional natural product discovery paradigms by revealing that the products of most bacterial biosynthetic pathways have yet to be discovered. Despite the insight afforded by this technology, little is known about the diversity and distributions of natural product biosynthetic pathways among bacteria and how they evolve to generate structural diversity. Here we analyze genome sequence data derived from 75 strains of the marine actinomycete genus Salinispora for pathways associated with polyketide and nonribosomal peptide biosynthesis, the products of which account for some of today’s most important medicines. The results reveal high levels of diversity, with a total of 124 pathways identified and 229 predicted with continued sequencing. Recent horizontal gene transfer accounts for the majority of pathways, which occur in only one or two strains. Acquired pathways are incorporated into genomic islands and are commonly exchanged within and between species. Acquisition and transfer events largely involve complete pathways, which subsequently evolve by gene gain, loss, and duplication followed by divergence. The exchange of similar pathway types at the precise chromosomal locations in different strains suggests that the mechanisms of integration include pathway-level homologous recombination. Despite extensive horizontal gene transfer there is clear evidence of species-level vertical inheritance, supporting the concept that secondary metabolites represent functional traits that help define Salinispora species. The plasticity of the Salinispora secondary metabolome provides an effective mechanism to maximize population-level secondary metabolite diversity while limiting the number of pathways maintained within any individual genome.

Microcyclamide Biosynthesis in Two Strains of Microcystis aeruginosa: from Structure to Genes and Vice Versa

ABSTRACT Comparative analysis of related biosynthetic gene clusters can provide new insights into the versatility of these pathways and allow the discovery of new natural products. The freshwater cyanobacterium Microcystis aeruginosa NIES298 produces the cytotoxic peptide microcyclamide. Here, we provide evidence that the cyclic hexapeptide is formed by a ribosomal pathway through the activity of a set of processing enzymes closely resembling those recently shown to be involved in patellamide biosynthesis in cyanobacterial symbionts of ascidians. Besides two subtilisin-type proteases and a heterocyclization enzyme, the gene cluster discovered in strain NIES298 encodes six further open reading frames, two of them without similarity to enzymes encoded by the patellamide gene cluster. Analyses of genomic data of a second cyanobacterial strain, M. aeruginosa PCC 7806, guided the discovery and structural elucidation of two novel peptides of the microcyclamide family. The identification of the microcyclamide biosynthetic genes provided an avenue by which to study the regulation of peptide synthesis at the transcriptional level. The precursor genes were strongly and constitutively expressed throughout the growth phase, excluding the autoinduction of these peptides, as has been observed for several peptide pheromone families in bacteria.

Glycogenomics as a mass spectrometry-guided genome-mining method for microbial glycosylated molecules.

Significance Glycosyl groups function as essential chemical mediators of molecular interactions in cells and on cellular surfaces. Microbes integrate carbohydrates into secondary metabolism to produce glycosylated natural products (GNPs) that may function in chemical communication and defense. Many glycosylated metabolites are important pharmaceutical agents. Herein, we introduce glycogenomics as a new genome-mining method that links metabolomics and genomics for the rapid identification and characterization of bioactive microbial GNPs. Glycogenomics identifies glycosyl groups in microbial metabolomes by tandem mass spectrometry and links this chemical signature through a glycogenetic code to glycosylation genes in a microbial genome. As a proof of principle, we report the discovery of arenimycin B from a marine actinobacterium as a new antibiotic active against multidrug-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. Glycosyl groups are an essential mediator of molecular interactions in cells and on cellular surfaces. There are very few methods that directly relate sugar-containing molecules to their biosynthetic machineries. Here, we introduce glycogenomics as an experiment-guided genome-mining approach for fast characterization of glycosylated natural products (GNPs) and their biosynthetic pathways from genome-sequenced microbes by targeting glycosyl groups in microbial metabolomes. Microbial GNPs consist of aglycone and glycosyl structure groups in which the sugar unit(s) are often critical for the GNP’s bioactivity, e.g., by promoting binding to a target biomolecule. GNPs are a structurally diverse class of molecules with important pharmaceutical and agrochemical applications. Herein, O- and N-glycosyl groups are characterized in their sugar monomers by tandem mass spectrometry (MS) and matched to corresponding glycosylation genes in secondary metabolic pathways by a MS-glycogenetic code. The associated aglycone biosynthetic genes of the GNP genotype then classify the natural product to further guide structure elucidation. We highlight the glycogenomic strategy by the characterization of several bioactive glycosylated molecules and their gene clusters, including the anticancer agent cinerubin B from Streptomyces sp. SPB74 and an antibiotic, arenimycin B, from Salinispora arenicola CNB-527.

Exploiting the Natural Diversity of Microviridin Gene Clusters for Discovery of Novel Tricyclic Depsipeptides

ABSTRACT Microviridins are ribosomally synthesized tricyclic depsipeptides produced by different genera of cyanobacteria. The prevalence of the microviridin gene clusters and the natural diversity of microviridin precursor sequences are currently unknown. Screening of laboratory strains and field samples of the bloom-forming freshwater cyanobacterium Microcystis via PCR revealed global occurrence of the microviridin pathway and an unexpected natural variety. We could detect 15 new variants of the precursor gene mdnA encoding microviridin backbones that differ in up to 4 amino acid positions from known isoforms of the peptide. The survey not only provides insights into the versatility of the biosynthetic enzymes in a closely related group of cyanobacteria, but also facilitates the discovery and characterization of cryptic microviridin variants. This is demonstrated for microviridin L in Microcystis aeruginosa strain NIES843 and heterologously produced variants.

Challenges and triumphs to genomics-based natural product discovery

Genome sequencing is rapidly changing the field of natural products research by providing opportunities to assess the biosynthetic potential of strains prior to chemical analysis or biological testing. Ready access to sequence data is driving the development of new bioinformatic tools and methods to identify the products of silent or cryptic pathways. While genome mining has fast become a useful approach to natural product discovery, it has also become clear that identifying pathways of interest is much easier than finding the associated products. This has led to bottlenecks in the discovery process that must be overcome for the potential of genomics-based natural product discovery to be fully realized. In this perspective, we address some of these challenges in the context of our work with the marine actinomycete genus Salinispora, which is proving to be a useful model with which to apply genome mining as an approach to natural product discovery.

Direct capture and heterologous expression of Salinispora natural product genes for the biosynthesis of enterocin.

Heterologous expression of secondary metabolic pathways is a promising approach for the discovery and characterization of bioactive natural products. Herein we report the first heterologous expression of a natural product from the model marine actinomycete genus Salinispora. Using the recently developed method of yeast-mediated transformation-associated recombination for natural product gene clusters, we captured a type II polyketide synthase pathway from Salinispora pacifica with high homology to the enterocin pathway from Streptomyces maritimus and successfully produced enterocin in two different Streptomyces host strains. This result paves the way for the systematic interrogation of Salinispora’s promising secondary metabolome.

Antibiotic drug discovery.

Due to the threat posed by the increase of highly resistant pathogenic bacteria, there is an urgent need for new antibiotics; all the more so since in the last 20 years, the approval for new antibacterial agents had decreased. The field of natural product discovery has undergone a tremendous development over the past few years. This has been the consequence of several new and revolutionizing drug discovery and development techniques, which is initiating a ‘New Age of Antibiotic Discovery’. In this review, we concentrate on the most significant discovery approaches during the last and present years and comment on the challenges facing the community in the coming years.

Phylogenetic Approaches to Natural Product Structure Prediction

Phylogenetics is the study of the evolutionary relatedness among groups of organisms. Molecular phylogenetics uses sequence data to infer these relationships for both organisms and the genes they maintain. With the large amount of publicly available sequence data, phylogenetic inference has become increasingly important in all fields of biology. In the case of natural product research, phylogenetic relationships are proving to be highly informative in terms of delineating the architecture and function of the genes involved in secondary metabolite biosynthesis. Polyketide synthases and nonribosomal peptide synthetases provide model examples in which individual domain phylogenies display different predictive capacities, resolving features ranging from substrate specificity to structural motifs associated with the final metabolic product. This chapter provides examples in which phylogeny has proven effective in terms of predicting functional or structural aspects of secondary metabolism. The basics of how to build a reliable phylogenetic tree are explained along with information about programs and tools that can be used for this purpose. Furthermore, it introduces the Natural Product Domain Seeker, a recently developed Web tool that employs phylogenetic logic to classify ketosynthase and condensation domains based on established enzyme architecture and biochemical function.