Carbomycin A

The structurally related macrolide antibiotics carbomycin (Cb) and spiramycin (Sp) are produced by Streptomyces thermotolerans and Streptomyces ambofaciens, respectively. Both antibiotics contain 16-membered lactone rings to which deoxysugars are attached. There are three sugars in Sp (forosamine, mycaminose and mycarose) and two sugars in Cb (mycaminose and a derivative of mycarose containing an isovaleryl group at position 4). We have identified the gene from S. thermotolerans (designated carE), which appears to encode an enzyme that acylates this mycarose sugar, and have shown that recombinant strains containing carE can use Sp as a substrate and convert it to the hybrid antibiotic, isovaleryl Sp (ivSp). Expression of carE was demonstrated in two heterologous hosts: in S. ambofaciens, where endogenously synthesized Sp was converted to ivSp, and in Streptomyces lividans where exogenously added Sp was converted to ivSp. The carE gene was isolated on a cosmid that also encodes genes required for Cb-lactone formation. These genes reside on a DNA segment of about 70 kb and are part of a Cb biosynthetic gene cluster that is flanked by two Cb-resistance genes, carA and carB. Mapping studies and nucleotide sequence analysis revealed that carE is located at one end of this gene cluster, immediately adjacent to the carB gene. Genes carB and carE are transcribed convergently and may share a common transcriptional terminator sequence.

Carbomycins are 16-membered macrolide antibiotics produced by Streptomyces thermotolerans ATCC 11416T. To characterize gene cluster responsible for carbomycin biosynthesis, the draft genome sequences for strain ATCC 11416T were obtained, from which the partial carbomycin biosynthetic gene cluster was identified. This gene cluster was approximately 40 kb in length, and encoding 30 ORFs. Two putative transcriptional regulatory genes, acyB2 and cbmR, were inactivated by insertion of the apramycin resistance gene, and the resulting mutants were unable to produce carbomycin, thus confirming the involvement of two regulatory genes in carbomycin biosynthesis. Overexpression of acyB2 greatly improved the yield of carbomycin; however, overexpression of cbmR blocked carbomycin production. The qPCR analysis of the carbomycin biosynthetic genes in various mutants indicated that most genes were highly expressed in acyB2-overexpressing strains, but few expressed in cbmR-overexpressing strains. Furthermore, acyB2 co-expression with 4″-isovaleryltransferase gene (ist), resulted in efficient biotransformation of spiramycin into bitespiramycin in S. lividans TK24, whereas ist gene regulated by acyB2 and cbmR would cause the lower efficiency of spiramycin biotransformation. These results indicated that AcyB2 was a pathway-specific positive regulator of carbomycin biosynthesis. However, CbmR played a dual role in the carbomycin biosynthesis by acting as a positive regulator, and as a repressor at cbmR high expression levels.

A 3.2-kb DNA fragment of the carbomycin biosynthetic region including the 3-O-acyltransferase gene (acyA) from Streptomyces thermotolerans was sequenced, and four ORFs were found in the fragment. The second ORF, designated ORF-A, was transcribed in the opposite direction to the other three ORFs. The first ORF was identified as carA, a gene for carbomycin resistance. The amino acid sequence of ORF-A was homologous to proteins of the cytochrome P-450 family. Streptomyces lividans transformed with pCB20, in which ORF-A was subcloned, epoxidized carbomycin B at its C-12, 13 positions, thus producing carbomycin A. The third ORF, the amino acid sequence of which showed a homology to macrolide antibiotics O-acyltransferases was identified as acyA. The last ORF (ORF-B), which starts just 3 bp downstream from the TGA termination codon of acyA, was thought to be a carbomycin 4-O-methyltransferase gene, because the amino acid sequence deduced from ORF-B showed high homology to a putative midecamycin 4-O-methyltransferase encoded on mdmC.