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The biosynthesis of many natural products of clinical interest involves large, multidomain enzymes called nonribosomal peptide synthetases (NRPSs). In bacteria, many of the gene clusters coding for NRPSs also code for a member of the MbtH-like protein superfamily, which are small proteins of unknown function. Using MbtH-like proteins from three separate NRPS systems, we show that these proteins copurify with the NRPSs and influence amino acid activation. As a consequence, MbtH-like proteins are integral components of NRPSs.

Viomycin and capreomycin are members of the tuberactinomycin family of antituberculosis drugs. As with many antibacterial drugs, resistance to the tuberactinomycins is problematic in treating tuberculosis; this makes the development of new derivatives of these antibiotics to combat this resistance of utmost importance. To take steps towards developing new derivatives of this family of antibiotics, we have focused our efforts on understanding how these antibiotics are biosynthesized by the producing bacteria so that metabolic engineering of these pathways can be used to generate desired derivatives. Here we present the heterologous production of viomycin in Streptomyces lividans 1326 and the use of targeted-gene deletion as a mechanism for investigating viomycin biosynthesis as well as the generation of viomycin derivatives. Deletion of vioQ resulted in nonhydroxylated derivatives of viomycin, while strains lacking vioP failed to acylate the cyclic pentapeptide core of viomycin with beta-lysine. Surprisingly, strains lacking vioL produced derivatives that had the carbamoyl group of viomycin replaced by an acetyl group. Additionally, the acetylated viomycin derivatives were produced at very low levels. These two observations suggested that the carbamoyl group of the cyclic pentapeptide core of viomycin was introduced at an earlier step in the biosynthetic pathway than previously proposed. We present biochemical evidence that the carbamoyl group is added to the beta-amino group of L-2,3-diaminopropionate prior to incorporation of this amino acid by the nonribosomal peptide synthetases that form the cyclic pentapeptide cores of both viomycin and capreomycin.

The nonheme iron oxygenase VioC from Streptomyces vinaceus catalyzes Fe(II)-dependent and α-ketoglutarate-dependent Cβ-hydroxylation ofl-arginine during the biosynthesis of the tuberactinomycin antibiotic viomycin. Crystal structures of VioC were determined in complexes with the cofactor Fe(II), the substratel-arginine, the product (2 S,3 S)-hydroxyarginine and the coproduct succinate at 1.1–1.3 Å resolution. The overall structure reveals a β-helix core fold with two additional helical subdomains that are common to nonheme iron oxygenases of the clavaminic acid synthase-like superfamily. In contrast to other clavaminic acid synthase-like oxygenases, which catalyze the formation of threo diastereomers, VioC produces the erythro diastereomer of Cβ-hydroxylatedl-arginine. This unexpected stereospecificity is caused by conformational control of the bound substrate, which enforces a gauche(–) conformer for χ1 instead of the trans conformers observed for the asparagine oxygenase AsnO and other members of the clavaminic acid synthase-like superfamily. Additionally, the substrate specificity of VioC was investigated. The side chain of thel-arginine substrate projects outwards from the active site by undergoing interactions mainly with the C-terminal helical subdomain. Accordingly, VioC exerts broadened substrate specificity by accepting the analogsl-homoarginine andl-canavanine for Cβ-hydroxylation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]