WhiB-like proteins: Diversity of structure, function and mechanism.

The WhiB-Like (Wbl) proteins are a large family of iron-sulfur (Fe-S) cluster-containing transcription factors exclusively found in the phylum Actinobacteria, including the notable genera like Mycobacteria, Streptomycetes and Corynebacteria. These proteins play pivotal roles in diverse biological processes, such as cell development, redox stress response and antibiotic resistance. Members of the Wbl family exhibit remarkable diversity in their sequences, structures and functions, attracting great attention since their first discovery. This review highlights the most recent breakthroughs in understanding the structural and mechanistic aspects of Wbl-dependent transcriptional regulation.

Functional and Structural Analysis of Phenazine O-Methyltransferase LaPhzM from Lysobacter antibioticus OH13 and One-Pot Enzymatic Synthesis of the Antibiotic Myxin.

Myxin is a well-known antibiotic that had been used for decades. It belongs to the phenazine natural products that exhibit various biological activities, which are often dictated by the decorating groups on the heteroaromatic three-ring system. The three rings of myxin carry a number of decorations, including an unusual aromatic N5, N10-dioxide. We previously showed that phenazine 1,6-dicarboxylic acid (PDC) is the direct precursor of myxin, and two redox enzymes (LaPhzS and LaPhzNO1) catalyze the decarboxylative hydroxylation and aromatic N-oxidations of PDC to produce iodinin (1.6-dihydroxy- N5, N10-dioxide phenazine). In this work, we identified the LaPhzM gene from Lysobacter antibioticus OH13 and demonstrated that LaPhzM encodes a SAM-dependent O-methyltransferase converting iodinin to myxin. The results further showed that LaPhzM is responsible for both monomethoxy and dimethoxy formation in all phenazine compounds isolated from strain OH13. LaPhzM exhibits relaxed substrate selectivity, catalyzing O-methylation of phenazines with non-, mono-, or di- N-oxide. In addition, we demonstrated a one-pot biosynthesis of myxin by in vitro reconstitution of the three phenazine-ring decorating enzymes. Finally, we determined the X-ray crystal structure of LaPhzM with a bound cofactor at 1.4 Å resolution. The structure provided molecular insights into the activity and selectivity of the first characterized phenazine O-methyltransferase. These results will facilitate future exploitation of the thousands of phenazines as new antibiotics through metabolic engineering and chemoenzymatic syntheses.