Location of the genes for anthranilate synthase in Streptomyces venezuelae ISP5230: genetic mapping after integration of the cloned genes.

The anthranilate synthase (trpEG) genes in Streptomyces venezuelae ISP5230 were located by allowing a segregationally unstable plasmid carrying cloned S. venezuelae trpEG DNA and a thiostrepton resistance (tsr) marker to integrate into the chromosome. The integrated tsr was mapped by conjugation and transduction to a location close to tyr-2, between arg-6 and trpA13. A genomic DNA fragment containing trpC from S. venezuelae ISP5230 was cloned by complementation of a trpC mutation in Streptomyces lividans. Evidence from restriction enzyme analysis of the cloned DNA fragments, from Southern hybridization using the cloned trp DNA as probes, and from cotransduction frequencies, placed trpEG at a distance of 12-45 kb from the trpCBA cluster. The overall arrangement of tryptophan biosynthesis genes in the S. venezuelae chromosome differs from that in other bacteria examined so far.

Localization of the lysine epsilon-aminotransferase (lat) and delta-(L-alpha-aminoadipyl)-L-cysteinyl-D-valine synthetase (pcbAB) genes from Streptomyces clavuligerus and production of lysine epsilon-aminotransferase activity in Escherichia coli.

Lysine epsilon-aminotransferase (LAT) in the beta-lactam-producing actinomycetes is considered to be the first step in the antibiotic biosynthetic pathway. Cloning of restriction fragments from Streptomyces clavuligerus, a beta-lactam producer, into Streptomyces lividans, a nonproducer that lacks LAT activity, led to the production of LAT in the host. DNA sequencing of restriction fragments containing the putative lat gene revealed a single open reading frame encoding a polypeptide with an approximately Mr 49,000. Expression of this coding sequence in Escherichia coli led to the production of LAT activity. Hence, LAT activity in S. clavuligerus is derived from a single polypeptide. A second open reading frame began immediately downstream from lat. Comparison of this partial sequence with the sequences of delta-(L-alpha-aminoadipyl)-L-cysteinyl-D valine (ACV) synthetases from Penicillium chrysogenum and Cephalosporium acremonium and with nonribosomal peptide synthetases (gramicidin S and tyrocidine synthetases) found similarities among the open reading frames. Since mapping of the putative N and C termini of S. clavuligerus pcbAB suggests that the coding region occupies approximately 12 kbp and codes for a polypeptide related in size to the fungal ACV synthetases, the molecular characterization of the beta-lactam biosynthetic cluster between pcbC and cefE (approximately 25 kbp) is nearly complete.

Molecular cloning of the genes for anthranilate synthetase from Streptomyces venezuelae ISP 5230.

Fragments of genomic DNA from Streptomyces venezuelae ISP5230 were cloned in the Escherichia coli expression vector pTZ18R and the plasmids were used to transform E. coli JA194 (trpE). The transformants included a prototrophic strain containing a recombinant plasmid, pDQ181, with an approximately 6.8-kb insert. Subcloning located the trpE-complementing DNA in a 2.4-kb segment. Transformation of E. coli ED23 (lacking both trpE and trpG functions) with plasmids containing the 2.4-kb DNA segment gave prototrophic strains exhibiting both the ASI and ASII activities of anthranilate synthetase. The results indicated that trpE and trpG are clustered in S. venezuelae. Regions hybridizing to the pDQ181 insert were present in the genomic DNA of other streptomycetes.

Cloning and location of a gene governing lysine epsilon-aminotransferase, an enzyme initiating beta-lactam biosynthesis in Streptomyces spp.

In actinomycetes that produce beta-lactam antibiotics of the cephem type, lysine epsilon-aminotransferase is the initial enzyme in the conversion of lysine to alpha-aminoadipic acid. We used a two-stage process ("chromosome walking") to screen a lambda library of Streptomyces clavuligerus genomic DNA for fragments that expressed lysine epsilon-aminotransferase activity in S. lividans. Restriction analysis of the cloned DNA confirmed the location of the putative lat gene within the cluster of beta-lactam biosynthesis genes, roughly midway between pcbC, the structural gene for isopenicillin N synthetase, and the putative cefE gene encoding deacetoxycephalosporin C synthetase.

Lysine cataboism and α-aminoadipate synthesis in Streptomyces clavuligerus.

The intracellular α-aminoadipic acid pool in Streptomyces glavuligerus mycelium growing in a starch-peptone medium decreased during the late exponential and stationary phases when cephamycin was being produced; however, the amino acid accumulated extracellularly. Although the specific activity of lysine ɛ-aminotransferase (LAT) decreased during this period, there was no indication that the extracellular α-aminoadipic acid functioned as a precursor reserve for synthesis of the ß-lactam antibiotic. Measurement of LAT activity in cultures grown in defined media with starch and various nitrogen sources indicated that the enzyme was synthesized preferentially only during early growth. In its insensitivity to induction by a precursor, and in its susceptibility to carbon catabolite repression, LAT behaved as a secondary metabolic pathway enzyme. Unexpectedly, however, the enzyme increased in specific activity when cultures were supplemented with excess phosphate. Unlike LAT, cadeverine aminotransferase was inducible by lysine or cadaverine and insensitive to phosphate; its features were consistent with a role in the catabolism of lysine by S. clavuligerus.

Sporulation of Streptomyces venezuelae in submerged cultures.

Shaken cultures of Streptomyces venezuelae ISP5230 in minimal medium with galactose and ammonium sulphate as carbon and nitrogen sources, respectively, showed extensive sporulation after 72 h incubation at 37 degrees C. The spores formed in these cultures resembled aerial spores in their characteristics. The ability of the spores to withstand lysozyme treatment was used to monitor the progress of sporulation in cultures and to determine the physiological requirements for sporulation. In media containing ammonium sulphate as the nitrogen source, galactose was the best of six carbon sources tested. With galactose S. venezuelae ISP5230 sporulated when supplied with any of several nitrogen sources; however, an excess of nitrogen source was inhibitory. In cultures containing galactose and ammonium sulphate, sporulation was suppressed by a peptone supplement. The onset of sporulation was accompanied by a drop in intracellular GTP content. When decoyinine, an inhibitor of GMP synthase, was added to a medium containing starch and ammonium sulphate, a slight increase in sporulation was seen after 2 d. The suppression of sporulation by peptone in liquid or agar cultures was not reversed by addition of decoyinine. A hypersporulating mutant of S. venezuelae ISP5230 was altered in its ability to assimilate sugars. In cultures containing glucose the mutant sporulated more profusely than did the wild-type and did not acidify the medium to the same extent. However, the suppressive effect of glucose on sporulation was not merely a secondary result of acid accumulation.

Biosynthesis and control of beta-lactam antibiotics: the early steps in the "classical" tripeptide pathway.

The interaction between growth and secondary metabolism develops from physiological responses of the producer organism to its environment. Nutrients are channelled into primary growth processes or into secondary processes such as antibiotic biosynthesis by a variety of metabolic controls, the nature of which has been extensively studied in organisms producing beta-lactam antibiotics via the tripeptide, delta-(L-alpha-aminoadipyl)-L-cysteinyl-D-valine. In the following article we review the early stages of beta-lactam biosynthesis in fungi and actinomycetes, keeping in mind the regulation of primary pathways that provide the amino acid precursors of this group of antibiotics, as well as the regulation of the secondary pathway itself. Of special importance to organisms engaging in secondary metabolism are the control mechanisms that suppress the nonessential process during rapid growth but allow secondary metabolic genes to be expressed and resources to be diverted when environmental factors generate the appropriate biochemical signals.

Lysine catabolism in Streptomyces spp. is primarily through cadaverine: beta-lactam producers also make alpha-aminoadipate.

Genetic and biochemical evidence was obtained for lysine catabolism via cadaverine and delta-aminovalerate in both the beta-lactam producer Streptomyces clavuligerus and the nonproducer Streptomyces lividans. This pathway is used when lysine is supplied as the sole source of nitrogen for the organism. A second pathway for lysine catabolism is present in S. clavuligerus but not in S. lividans. It leads to alpha-aminoadipate, a precursor for beta-lactam biosynthesis. Since it does not allow S. clavuligerus to grow on lysine as the sole nitrogen source, this pathway may be used exclusively to provide a precursor for beta-lactam biosynthesis. beta-Lactam producers were unable to grow well on alpha-aminoadipate as the only nitrogen source, whereas three of seven species not known to produce beta-lactam grew well under the same conditions. Lysine epsilon-aminotransferase, the initial enzyme in the alpha-aminoadipate pathway for lysine catabolism, was detected in cell extracts only from the beta-lactam producers. These results suggest that synthesis of alpha-aminoadipate is exclusively a secondary metabolic trait, present or expressed only in beta-lactam producers, while genes governing the catabolism of alpha-aminoadipate are present or fully expressed only in beta-lactam nonproducers.

Transductional analysis of chloramphenicol biosynthesis genes in Streptomyces venezuelae.

Auxotrophs isolated from two chloramphenicol-nonproducing mutants of Streptomyces venezuelae included three requiring pyridoxal (Pxl-), VS248 (cml-11 pdx-2), VS253 (cml-11 pdx-3), and VS258 (cml-12 pdx-4), and one requiring thiosulfate, VS263 (cml-12 cys-28). Results of SV1-mediated transductions were consistent with the relative marker order cys-28-cml-12-cml-11-pdx-2,3,4,5, all of which were cotransducible and must therefore span less than 45 kilobases of DNA, the approximate length of DNA packaged by SV1. cys-28 was also cotransducible with arg-4 and arg-6, but arg and pdx were not cotransducible. Results of crosses with donors carrying any one of 11 cml mutations were consistent with the location of all cml mutations between cys-28 and pdx markers. Also, a new Pxl- auxotroph (pdx-6) and two new Cml- mutants were recovered after localized hydroxylamine mutagenesis of a cys-28 cml+ strain derived from VS263 by transduction.

Genome structure in Streptomyces spp.: adjacent genes on the S. coelicolor A3(2) linkage map have cotransducible analogs in S. venezuelae.

Cotransduction analysis in Streptomyces venezuelae with the generalized transducing phage SV1 showed that several pairs of likely analogs of markers that are adjacent on the conjugational linkage map of Streptomyces coelicolor A3(2) were cotransducible and therefore physically close together. This supports the contention that taxonomically distinct "species" of Streptomyces are genetically closely related.

Conjugational fertility and location of chloramphenicol biosynthesis genes on the chromosomal linkage map of Streptomyces venezuelae.

In Streptomyces venezuelae fertility, defined as chromosomal gene recombination, was enhanced over 1000-fold when one parent in a biparental conjugational cross lacked the physically-undetected plasmid SVP1, as compared with crosses in which both parents carried SVP1. The existence of SVP1 and at least two other fertility plasmids, SVP2 and SVP3, was detected in S. venezuelae by 'lethal zygosis' elicited by a plasmid-plus mycelium in contact with a plasmid-minus mycelium. Conjugational crosses were used to construct a linkage map of S. venezuelae which was highly consistent with the map of analogous loci in S. coelicolor A3(2). A cluster of genes governing chloramphenicol biosynthesis was located near arg, cys and pdxB genes at a position roughly equivalent to the 1-2 o'clock region of the S. coelicolor A3(2) map.

Isolation and characterization of Streptomyces venezuelae mutants blocked in chloramphenicol biosynthesis.

Twelve Streptomyces venezuelae mutants blocked in chloramphenicol biosynthesis were isolated. Two of these (Cm1-1 and Cm1-12) were apparently blocked in the conversion of chorismic acid to p-aminophenylalanine and three (Cm1-4, Cm1-5 and Cm1-8) accumulated p-aminophenylalanine and may have been blocked in the hydroxylation reaction that converted this intermediate to p-aminophenylserine. One mutant (Cm1-2) accumulated D-threo-1-p-nitrophenyl-2-propionamido-1,3-propanediol and D-threo-1-p-nitrophenyl-2-isobutyramido-1,3-propanediol, indicating that chlorination of the alpha-N-acyl group of chloramphenicol was blocked. The remaining six strains did not excrete any detectable chloramphenicol pathway intermediates.

Localized hydroxylamine mutagenesis, and cotransduction of threonine and lysine genes, in Streptomyces venezuelae.

A lysate of the generalized transducing phage SV1, grown on the prototrophic type strain 10712 of Streptomyces venezuelae, was mutagenized with hydroxylamine and used to transduce a lysineless auxotroph to lysine independence on supplemented minimal agar. A complex threonine mutant, strain VS95, was isolated from among the transductants and was shown to be carrying at least two different thr mutations. These were about 50% cotransducible with alleles of four independently isolated lysA mutations, as were two other independently isolated threonine mutations, thr-1 and hom-5. The location of thr genes close to lysA occurs in at least three other streptomycetes, but apparently not in Streptomyces coelicolor A3(2), in which the lysA and thr loci are at diametrically opposite locations on the linkage map. This first observation of cotransduction between loci governing the biosynthesis of different amino acids in the genus Streptomyces demonstrates the feasibility of fine-structure genetic analysis by transduction in these antibiotic-producing bacteria.

A new temperate phage of streptomyces venezuelae: morphology, DNA molecular weight and host range of SV2.

A new, narrow host range temperate phage, SV2, was isolated from soil. It lysogenized and lysed strains of Streptomyces venezuelae and seemed to be specific for this species. In general morphology, the virions were typically lambdoid, but had unusually ringed tails similar to those of some rare phages isolated from hosts belonging to different bacterial genera. The molecular weight of double-stranded linear SV2 DNA, estimated at about 24 X 10(6), was lower than the published values for other Streptomyces phages.

Tryptophan biosynthesis in Salmonella typhimurium: location in trpB of a genetic difference between strains LT2 and LT7.

Salmonella typhimurium prototrophs carrying a trpR mutation synthesize tryptophan biosynthetic enzymes constitutively. When feedback inhibition of anthranilate synthetase but not 5'-phosphoribosylpyrophosphate phosphoribosyltransferase activity was by-passed by growing cells on media supplemented with anthranilic acid, all trpR prototrophs overproduced and excreted tryptophan. However, the rate of tryptophan production depended on both the ancestry of the trpR strain and the integrity of its trpA gene. Prototrophs with trp genes derived from S. typhimurium strain LT2 produced tryptophan more efficiently than those with trp genes derived from strain LT7. This strain difference was cryptic insofar as it did not affect the growth rate; it was revealed only as a rate-limiting step in the constitutive biosynthesis of tryptophan in the presence of anthranilic acid, and was due to a lesion in the LT7-derived trpB gene. Strains with LT7-derived trp genes bearing a deletion in trpA produced tryptophan as readily as LT2 trpR prototrophs. This indicated that LT7-specific 5-phosphoribosylpyrophosphate phosphoribosyltransferase must be aggregated with the trpA gene produce to give an observable reduction of constitutive tryptophan production. The discovery of this strain difference has particular implications for studies involving the activities of trpA and B genes and their products in S. typhimurium and may have general significance for other studies involving different strains of Salmonella.

Genetic analysis of thr mutations in Salmonella typhimurium.

Previous workers divided threonine-requiring (Thr(-)) strains of Salmonella into three phenotypes with mutations in four complementation groups. The mutations were deemed to define four genes in the order thrD-C-A-B at minute zero on the Salmonella linkage map. In the present study 12 of these mutants were reexamined together with eight new Thr(-) strains. The three phenotypes were: homoserine-requiring (Hom(-)); Thr(-), feeders of Hom(-) strains; Thr(-), nonfeeders. Exact correlation between these phenotypic groups and three complementation groups was confirmed by abortive transduction. No evidence was found for intergenic complementation between mutations in Hom(-) strains. It is proposed that thr mutations define three genes rather than four and that these be renamed thrA (Hom(-)), thrB (Thr(-) feeders), and thrC (Thr(-) nonfeeders) to correspond with the sequence of reactions in threonine biosynthesis. Double mutant trpRthr strains were used in reciprocal three-point transduction tests to establish the order of thr mutation sites. Although revisions were made in the classification or location of several mutations, there was an overall correlation of complementation group, phenotype, and map position. The present data provide a basis for further correlation of threonine genes and biosynthetic enzymes, and analysis of cross regulation in aspartate amino acid biosynthesis in Salmonella.

Location of trpR mutations in the serB-thr region of Salmonella typhimurium.

Tryptophan biosynthesis in Salmonella is controlled by at least one regulatory gene, trpR, which is cotransducible with thr genes and not with the trp operon. Mutations in trpR cause derepression of tryptophan enzyme synthesis and confer resistance to growth inhibition by 5-methyltryptophan. Nineteen trpR mutations were mapped with respect to thrA and serB markers by two-point (ratio) and three-point transduction tests. The results are all consistent with the site order serB80-trpR-thrA59 on the Salmonella chromosome. Very low or undetectable levels of recombination between different trpR mutations have so far prevented the determination of fine structure in the trpR gene. Thirteen other 5-methyltryptophan-resistant mutants previously found not to be cotransducible with either the trp operon or thrA, and designated trpT, were also used in these experiments. Lack of cotransducibility with thrA was confirmed, and no linkage with serB was detected. The nature and location of trpT mutations remain obscure.

"Self-feeding" strain of Salmonella typhimurium with a mutation in the trpB gene and nutritional requirements of trpA gene mutants.

An indole-requiring (Ind(-)) mutant of Salmonella typhimurium, isolated from a culture of a leaky trpA mutant, was genetically analyzed by P22-mediated transduction. The mutation site giving the Ind(-) phenotype was shown to be in trpB, the second gene of the trp operon. A second mutation at this site resulted in change of nutritional requirement from indole to anthranilic acid (Anth(-)). This phenotype is normally associated with mutations in the first trp gene, trpA. However, the Anth(-) mutant also excreted anthranilic acid and showed "self-feeding" on unsupplemented media. Of two possible explanations for this aberrant phenotype, the first, that the trpB mutations may be in the "unusual" region, was dismissed on genetic evidence and on the biochemical evidence that an active anthranilate synthetase (AS) is produced. The alternative explanation, that the affected enzymatic activity, phosphoribosyl transferase, is unstable in vivo, but its AS component 2 activity is stable, is considered more probable.