Pieter C. Dorrestein

Ribosomally synthesized and post-translationally modified peptide natural products: overview and recommendations for a universal nomenclature

This review presents recommended nomenclature for the biosynthesis of ribosomally synthesized and post-translationally modified peptides (RiPPs), a rapidly growing class of natural products. The current knowledge regarding the biosynthesis of the >20 distinct compound classes is also reviewed, and commonalities are discussed.

Mass spectral molecular networking of living microbial colonies

Integrating the governing chemistry with the genomics and phenotypes of microbial colonies has been a “holy grail” in microbiology. This work describes a highly sensitive, broadly applicable, and cost-effective approach that allows metabolic profiling of live microbial colonies directly from a Petri dish without any sample preparation. Nanospray desorption electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (MS), combined with alignment of MS data and molecular networking, enabled monitoring of metabolite production from live microbial colonies from diverse bacterial genera, including Bacillus subtilis, Streptomyces coelicolor, Mycobacterium smegmatis, and Pseudomonas aeruginosa. This work demonstrates that, by using these tools to visualize small molecular changes within bacterial interactions, insights can be gained into bacterial developmental processes as a result of the improved organization of MS/MS data. To validate this experimental platform, metabolic profiling was performed on Pseudomonas sp. SH-C52, which protects sugar beet plants from infections by specific soil-borne fungi [R. Mendes et al. (2011) Science 332:1097–1100]. The antifungal effect of strain SH-C52 was attributed to thanamycin, a predicted lipopeptide encoded by a nonribosomal peptide synthetase gene cluster. Our technology, in combination with our recently developed peptidogenomics strategy, enabled the detection and partial characterization of thanamycin and showed that it is a monochlorinated lipopeptide that belongs to the syringomycin family of antifungal agents. In conclusion, the platform presented here provides a significant advancement in our ability to understand the spatiotemporal dynamics of metabolite production in live microbial colonies and communities.

PHF8 Mediates Histone H4 Lysine 20 Demethylation Events Involved in Cell Cycle Progression

While reversible histone modifications are linked to an ever-expanding range of biological functions, the demethylases for histone H4 lysine 20 and their potential regulatory roles remain unknown. Here we report that the PHD and Jumonji C (JmjC) domain-containing protein, PHF8, while using multiple substrates, including H3K9me1/2 and H3K27me2, also functions as an H4K20me1 demethylase. PHF8 is recruited to promoters by its PHD domain based on interaction with H3K4me2/3 and controls G1–S transition in conjunction with E2F1, HCF-1 (also known as HCFC1) and SET1A (also known as SETD1A), at least in part, by removing the repressive H4K20me1 mark from a subset of E2F1-regulated gene promoters. Phosphorylation-dependent PHF8 dismissal from chromatin in prophase is apparently required for the accumulation of H4K20me1 during early mitosis, which might represent a component of the condensin II loading process. Accordingly, the HEAT repeat clusters in two non-structural maintenance of chromosomes (SMC) condensin II subunits, N-CAPD3 and N-CAPG2 (also known as NCAPD3 and NCAPG2, respectively), are capable of recognizing H4K20me1, and ChIP-Seq analysis demonstrates a significant overlap of condensin II and H4K20me1 sites in mitotic HeLa cells. Thus, the identification and characterization of an H4K20me1 demethylase, PHF8, has revealed an intimate link between this enzyme and two distinct events in cell cycle progression.

A monovalent streptavidin with a single femtomolar biotin binding site

Streptavidin and avidin are used ubiquitously because of the remarkable affinity of their biotin binding, but they are tetramers, which disrupts many of their applications. Making either protein monomeric reduces affinity by at least 104-fold because part of the binding site comes from a neighboring subunit. Here we engineered a streptavidin tetramer with only one functional biotin binding subunit that retained the affinity, off rate and thermostability of wild-type streptavidin. In denaturant, we mixed a streptavidin variant containing three mutations that block biotin binding with wild-type streptavidin in a 3:1 ratio. Then we generated monovalent streptavidin by refolding and nickel-affinity purification. Similarly, we purified defined tetramers with two or three biotin binding subunits. Labeling of site-specifically biotinylated neuroligin-1 with monovalent streptavidin allowed stable neuroligin-1 tracking without cross-linking, whereas wild-type streptavidin aggregated neuroligin-1 and disrupted presynaptic contacts. Monovalent streptavidin should find general application in biomolecule labeling, single-particle tracking and nanotechnology.

A mass spectrometry-guided genome mining approach for natural product peptidogenomics

Peptide natural products exhibit broad biological properties and are commonly produced by orthogonal ribosomal and nonribosomal pathways in prokaryotes and eukaryotes. To harvest this large and diverse resource of bioactive molecules, we introduce Natural Product Peptidogenomics (NPP), a new mass spectrometry-guided genome mining method that connects the chemotypes of peptide natural products to their biosynthetic gene clusters by iteratively matching de novo MSn structures to genomics-based structures following current biosynthetic logic. In this study we demonstrate that NPP enabled the rapid characterization of >10 chemically diverse ribosomal and nonribosomal peptide natural products of novel composition from streptomycete bacteria as a proof of concept to begin automating the genome mining process. We show the identification of lantipeptides, lasso peptides, linardins, formylated peptides and lipopeptides, many of which from well-characterized model streptomycetes, highlighting the power of NPP in the discovery of new peptide natural products from even intensely studied organisms.

Imaging mass spectrometry in microbiology

Imaging mass spectrometry tools allow the two-dimensional visualization of the distribution of trace metals, metabolites, surface lipids, peptides and proteins directly from biological samples without the need for chemical tagging or antibodies, and are becoming increasingly useful for microbiology applications. These tools, comprising different imaging mass spectrometry techniques, are ushering in an exciting new era of discovery by enabling the generation of chemical hypotheses based on the spatial mapping of atoms and molecules that can correlate to or transcend observed phenotypes. In this Innovation article, we explore the wide range of imaging mass spectrometry techniques that is available to microbiologists and describe the unique applications of these tools to microbiology with respect to the types of samples to be investigated.

Direct cloning and refactoring of a silent lipopeptide biosynthetic gene cluster yields the antibiotic taromycin A.

Significance Microbes have the genetic capacity to produce large numbers of specialized compounds, yet produce only a small fraction of these in the laboratory. Here we introduce a genetic platform that allows the efficient production of natural product molecules from uncharacterized gene collections. We used transformation-associated recombination in yeast to directly clone and express an orphan biosynthetic gene cluster for the production of the lipopeptide antibiotic taromycin A. With this direct cloning approach, a single genomic capture and expression vector was designed directly from next-generation sequencing data, which precisely captures genetic loci of interest and readily facilitates genetic manipulations. This study highlights a “plug-and-play” approach to cryptic biosynthetic pathways for the discovery and development of natural product drug candidates. Recent developments in next-generation sequencing technologies have brought recognition of microbial genomes as a rich resource for novel natural product discovery. However, owing to the scarcity of efficient procedures to connect genes to molecules, only a small fraction of secondary metabolomes have been investigated to date. Transformation-associated recombination (TAR) cloning takes advantage of the natural in vivo homologous recombination of Saccharomyces cerevisiae to directly capture large genomic loci. Here we report a TAR-based genetic platform that allows us to directly clone, refactor, and heterologously express a silent biosynthetic pathway to yield a new antibiotic. With this method, which involves regulatory gene remodeling, we successfully expressed a 67-kb nonribosomal peptide synthetase biosynthetic gene cluster from the marine actinomycete Saccharomonospora sp. CNQ-490 and produced the dichlorinated lipopeptide antibiotic taromycin A in the model expression host Streptomyces coelicolor. The taromycin gene cluster (tar) is highly similar to the clinically approved antibiotic daptomycin from Streptomyces roseosporus, but has notable structural differences in three amino acid residues and the lipid side chain. With the activation of the tar gene cluster and production of taromycin A, this study highlights a unique “plug-and-play” approach to efficiently gaining access to orphan pathways that may open avenues for novel natural product discoveries and drug development.

Interspecies Interactions Stimulate Diversification of the Streptomyces coelicolor Secreted Metabolome

ABSTRACT Soils host diverse microbial communities that include filamentous actinobacteria (actinomycetes). These bacteria have been a rich source of useful metabolites, including antimicrobials, antifungals, anticancer agents, siderophores, and immunosuppressants. While humans have long exploited these compounds for therapeutic purposes, the role these natural products may play in mediating interactions between actinomycetes has been difficult to ascertain. As an initial step toward understanding these chemical interactions at a systems level, we employed the emerging techniques of nanospray desorption electrospray ionization (NanoDESI) and matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization–time of flight (MALDI-TOF) imaging mass spectrometry to gain a global chemical view of the model bacterium Streptomyces coelicolor interacting with five other actinomycetes. In each interaction, the majority of secreted compounds associated with S. coelicolor colonies were unique, suggesting an idiosyncratic response from S. coelicolor. Spectral networking revealed a family of unknown compounds produced by S. coelicolor during several interactions. These compounds constitute an extended suite of at least 12 different desferrioxamines with acyl side chains of various lengths; their production was triggered by siderophores made by neighboring strains. Taken together, these results illustrate that chemical interactions between actinomycete bacteria exhibit high complexity and specificity and can drive differential secondary metabolite production. IMPORTANCE Actinomycetes, filamentous actinobacteria from the soil, are the deepest natural source of useful medicinal compounds, including antibiotics, antifungals, and anticancer agents. There is great interest in developing new strategies that increase the diversity of metabolites secreted by actinomycetes in the laboratory. Here we used several metabolomic approaches to examine the chemicals made by these bacteria when grown in pairwise coculture. We found that these interspecies interactions stimulated production of numerous chemical compounds that were not made when they grew alone. Among these compounds were at least 12 different versions of a molecule called desferrioxamine, a siderophore used by the bacteria to gather iron. Many other compounds of unknown identity were also observed, and the pattern of compound production varied greatly among the interaction sets. These findings suggest that chemical interactions between actinomycetes are surprisingly complex and that coculture may be a promising strategy for finding new molecules from actinomycetes. Actinomycetes, filamentous actinobacteria from the soil, are the deepest natural source of useful medicinal compounds, including antibiotics, antifungals, and anticancer agents. There is great interest in developing new strategies that increase the diversity of metabolites secreted by actinomycetes in the laboratory. Here we used several metabolomic approaches to examine the chemicals made by these bacteria when grown in pairwise coculture. We found that these interspecies interactions stimulated production of numerous chemical compounds that were not made when they grew alone. Among these compounds were at least 12 different versions of a molecule called desferrioxamine, a siderophore used by the bacteria to gather iron. Many other compounds of unknown identity were also observed, and the pattern of compound production varied greatly among the interaction sets. These findings suggest that chemical interactions between actinomycetes are surprisingly complex and that coculture may be a promising strategy for finding new molecules from actinomycetes.

Molecular Networking as a Dereplication Strategy

A major goal in natural product discovery programs is to rapidly dereplicate known entities from complex biological extracts. We demonstrate here that molecular networking, an approach that organizes MS/MS data based on chemical similarity, is a powerful complement to traditional dereplication strategies. Successful dereplication with molecular networks requires MS/MS spectra of the natural product mixture along with MS/MS spectra of known standards, synthetic compounds, or well-characterized organisms, preferably organized into robust databases. This approach can accommodate different ionization platforms, enabling cross correlations of MS/MS data from ambient ionization, direct infusion, and LC-based methods. Molecular networking not only dereplicates known molecules from complex mixtures, it also captures related analogues, a challenge for many other dereplication strategies. To illustrate its utility as a dereplication tool, we apply mass spectrometry-based molecular networking to a diverse array of marine and terrestrial microbial samples, illustrating the dereplication of 58 molecules including analogues.

Translating metabolic exchange with imaging mass spectrometry

Metabolic exchange between an organism and the environment, including interactions with neighboring organisms, is important for processes of organismal development. Here we develop and use thin-layer agar natural product MALDI-TOF imaging mass spectrometry of intact bacterial colonies grown on top of the MALDI target plate to study an interaction between two species of bacteria and provide direct evidence that a Bacillus subtilis silences the defensive arsenal of Streptomyces coelicolor.