Hiroyasu Onaka*, Hirokazu Tabata, Yasuhiro Igarashi, Yukio Sato+ and Tamotsu Furumai,
Biotechnology Research Center, Toyama Prefectural University,
+College of Technology, Toyama Prefectural University,
Kosugi, Toyama 939-0398, Japan
*Corresponding author. Phone: (0766) 56-7500, ext. 522.
Fax: +81 (766) 56-2498.
Biotechnology Research Center, Toyama Prefectural University,
Kosugi, Toyama 939-0398, Japan
E-mail: onaka@pu-toyama.ac.jp
Abstract
Streptomycetes, which belong to the Gram-positive bacteria, produce
the secondary metabolites and sporulate. The timing of starting the
secondary metabolite production and the sporulation depends on the environmental
condition such as nitrogen and carbon sources. In order to obtain
a tool for understanding the regulation mechanism, we carried out a screening
of chemical substances which induce the secondary metabolism and sporulation
in streptomycetes and found an active substance from the culture broth
of Streptomyces sp. TP-A0584. This substance designated goadsporin
induced the formation of the red pigment and the sporulation in Streptomyces
lividans TK23 which dose not produce the pigment under normal growth
conditions at the concentration of 1 nM. Goadsporin is a oligopeptide
consisted of 19 amino acids with the molecular formula of C72H97N19O20S2.
Sporulation and/or secondary metabolite production was induced in 36 streptomycetes
strains among 42 strains tested. These results suggest that goadsporin
acts on a common regulation pathway for the sporulation and secondary metabolism
in streptomycetes and can be a powerful tool to analyze the regulation
mechanism.
Fig.1
Secondary metabolites of Streptomyces
sp.
TP-A0584.
Fig.2
Effects of goadsporin for Streptomyces
lividans
Fig.4
Effects of goadsporin for various actinomycetes