- Identification and functional characterization of phenylglycine biosynthetic genes involved in pristinamycin biosynthesis in Streptomyces pristinaespiralis.
Identification and functional characterization of phenylglycine biosynthetic genes involved in pristinamycin biosynthesis in Streptomyces pristinaespiralis.
Pristinamycin I (PI), a streptogramin type B antibiotic produced by Streptomyces pristinaespiralis, contains the aproteinogenic amino acid L-phenylglycine. Recent sequence analysis led to the identification of a set of putative phenylglycine biosynthetic genes. Successive inactivation of the individual genes resulted in a loss of PI production. Production was restored by supplementation with externally added L-phenylglycine, which demonstrates that these genes are involved in phenylglycine biosynthesis and thus probably disclosing the last essential pristinamycin biosynthetic genes. Finally, a putative pathway for phenylglycine synthesis is proposed.