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The rise of bacterial antibiotic resistance coupled with a diminished antibiotic drug pipeline underlines the importance of developing rational strategies to discover new antimicrobials. Microbially derived natural products are the basis for most of the antibiotic arsenal available to modern medicine. Here, we demonstrate a resistance-based approach to identify producers of elfamycins, an under-explored class of natural product antibiotics that target the essential translation factor EF-Tu. Antibiotic producers carry self-resistance genes to avoid suicide. These genes are often found within the same biosynthetic gene cluster (BGC) responsible for making the antibiotic, and we exploited this trait to identify members of the kirromycin class of elfamycin producers. Genome mining of Streptomyces spp. led to the identification of three isolates that harbor kirromycin-resistant EF-Tu (EF-Tu KirR ) within predicted natural product BGCs. Activity-guided purification on extracts of one of the Streptomyces isolates, which was not known to produce an elfamycin, identified it as a producer of phenelfamycin B, a linear polyketide. Phenelfamycin B demonstrates impressive antibacterial activity (MIC ∼ 1 μg/mL) against multidrug-resistant Neisseria gonorrhoeae , a clinically important Gram negative pathogen. The antigonococcal activity of phenelfamycin was shown to be the result of inhibition of protein biosynthesis by binding to EF-Tu. These results indicate that a resistance-based approach of identifying elfamycin producers is translatable to other antibiotic classes that can identify new and overlooked antibiotics necessary to address the antibiotic crisis.

Modification of natural product backbones is a proven strategy for the development of clinically useful antibiotics. Such modifications have traditionally been achieved through medicinal chemistry strategies or via in vitro enzymatic activities. In an orthogonal approach, engineering of biosynthetic pathways using synthetic biology techniques can generate chemical diversity. Here we report the use of a minimal teicoplanin class glycopeptide antibiotic (GPA) scaffold expressed in a production-optimized Streptomyces coelicolor strain to expand GPA chemical diversity. Thirteen scaffold-modifying enzymes from 7 GPA biosynthetic gene clusters in different combinations were introduced into S. coelicolor, enabling us to explore the criteria for in-cell GPA modification. These include identifying specific isozymes that tolerate the unnatural GPA scaffold and modifications that prevent or allow further elaboration by other enzymes. Overall, 15 molecules were detected, 9 of which have not been reported previously. Some of these compounds showed activity against GPA-resistant bacteria. This system allows us to observe the complex interplay between substrates and both non-native and native tailoring enzymes in a cell-based system and establishes rules for GPA synthetic biology and subsequent expansion of GPA chemical diversity.

Nucleocidin is one of the very few natural products known to contain fluorine. Mysteriously, the nucleocidin producer Streptomyces calvus ATCC 13382 has not been observed to synthesize the compound since its discovery in 1956. Here, we report that complementation of S. calvus ATCC 13382 with a functional bldA-encoded Leu-tRNA(UUA) molecule restores the production of nucleocidin. Nucleocidin was detected in culture extracts by (19) F NMR spectroscopy, HPLC-ESI-MS, and HPLC-continuum source molecular absorption spectroscopy for fluorine-specific detection. The molecule was purified from a large-scale culture and definitively characterized by NMR spectroscopy and high-resolution MS. The nucleocidin biosynthetic gene cluster was identified by the presence of genes encoding the 5'-O-sulfamate moiety and confirmed by gene disruption. Two of the genes within the nucleocidin biosynthetic gene cluster contain TTA codons, thus explaining the dependence on bldA and resolving a 60-year-old mystery., (© 2015 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.)

Synthetic biology offers a new path for the exploitation and improvement of natural products to address the growing crisis in antibiotic resistance. All antibiotics in clinical use are facing eventual obsolesce as a result of the evolution and dissemination of resistance mechanisms, yet there are few new drug leads forthcoming from the pharmaceutical sector. Natural products of microbial origin have proven over the past 70 years to be the wellspring of antimicrobial drugs. Harnessing synthetic biology thinking and strategies can provide new molecules and expand chemical diversity of known antibiotic scaffolds to provide much needed new drug leads. The glycopeptide antibiotics offer paradigmatic scaffolds suitable for such an approach. We review these strategies here using the glycopeptides as an example and demonstrate how synthetic biology can expand antibiotic chemical diversity to help address the growing resistance crisis.

Vancomycin-resistant enterococci (VRE) are notorious clinical pathogens restricting the use of glycopeptide antibiotics in the clinic setting. Routine surveillance to detect VRE isolated from patients relies on PCR bioassays and chromogenic agar-based test methods. In recent years, we and others have reported the emergence of enterococcal strains harboring a "silent" copy of vancomycin resistance genes that confer a vancomycin-susceptible phenotype (vancomycin-susceptible enterococci [VSE]) and thus escape detection using drug sensitivity screening tests. Alarmingly, these strains are able to convert to a resistance phenotype (VSE→VRE) during antibiotic treatment, severely compromising the success of therapy. Such strains have been termed vancomycin-variable enterococci (VVE). We have investigated the molecular mechanisms leading to the restoration of resistance in VVE isolates through the whole-genome sequencing of resistant isolates, measurement of resistance gene expression, and quantification of the accumulation of drug-resistant peptidoglycan precursors. The results demonstrate that VVE strains can revert to a VRE phenotype through the constitutive expression of the vancomycin resistance cassette. This is accomplished through a variety of changes in the DNA region upstream of the resistance genes that includes both a deletion of a likely transcription inhibitory secondary structure and the introduction of a new unregulated promoter. The VSE→VRE transition of VVE can occur in patients during the course of antibiotic therapy, resulting in treatment failure. These VVE strains therefore pose a new challenge to the current regimen of diagnostic tests used for VRE detection in the clinic setting., (Copyright © 2015, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.)

In this study, a draft genome sequence of Actinoplanes sp. ATCC 53533 was assembled, and an 81-kb biosynthetic cluster for the unusual sulfated glycopeptide UK-68,597 was identified. Glycopeptide antibiotics are important in the treatment of infections caused by Gram-positive bacteria. Glycopeptides contain heptapeptide backbones that are modified by many tailoring enzymes, including glycosyltransferases, sulfotransferases, methyltransferases, and halogenases, generating extensive chemical and functional diversity. Several tailoring enzymes in the cluster were examined in vitro for their ability to modify glycopeptides, resulting in the synthesis of novel molecules. Tailoring enzymes were also expressed in the producer of the glycopeptide aglycone A47934, generating additional chemical diversity. This work characterizes the biosynthetic program of UK-68,597 and demonstrates the capacity to expand glycopeptide chemical diversity by harnessing the unique chemistry of tailoring enzymes., (© 2014 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.)

Glycopeptides such as vancomycin, teicoplanin and telavancin are essential for treating infections caused by Gram-positive bacteria. Unfortunately, the dwindled pipeline of new antibiotics into the market and the emergence of glycopeptide-resistant enterococci and other resistant bacteria are increasingly making effective antibiotic treatment difficult. We have now learned a great deal about how bacteria produce antibiotics. This information can be exploited to develop the next generation of antimicrobials. The biosynthesis of glycopeptides via nonribosomal peptide assembly and unusual amino acid synthesis, crosslinking and tailoring enzymes gives rise to intricate chemical structures that target the bacterial cell wall. This review seeks to describe recent advances in our understanding of both biosynthesis and resistance of these important antibiotics.

For over half a century, actinomycetes have served as the most promising source of novel antibacterial scaffolds. However, over the years, there has been a decline in the discovery of new antibiotics from actinomycetes. This is partly due to the use of standard screening methods and platforms that result in the re-discovery of the same molecules. Thus, according to current estimates, the discovery of a new antibacterial requires screening of tens to hundreds of thousands of bacterial strains. We have devised a resistance-based antibacterial discovery platform by harnessing the innate self-protection mechanism of antibiotic producers. This protocol provides a detailed method for isolation of scaffold-specific antibacterial producers by isolating strains in the presence of a selective antibiotic. As a specific example, we describe isolation of glycopeptide antibiotic (GPA) producers from soil actinomycetes, using vancomycin as the antibiotic resistance filter. However, the protocol can be adapted to isolate diverse producers from various sources producing different scaffolds, by selecting an appropriate antibiotic as a screening filter. The protocol provides a solution for two major bottlenecks that impede the new drug discovery pipeline: low hit frequency and re-discovery of known molecules. The entire protocol, from soil collection to identification of putative antibacterial producers, takes about 6 weeks to complete.

Streptomyces calvus is best known as the producer of the fluorinated natural product nucleocidin. This strain of Streptomycetes is also unusual for displaying a "bald" phenotype that is deficient in the formation of aerial mycelium and spores. Genome sequencing of this organism revealed a point mutation in the bldA gene that is predicted to encode a misfolded Leu-tRNA(UUA) molecule. Complementation of S. calvus with a correct copy of bldA restored sporulation and additionally promoted production of a polyeneoic acid amide, 4-Z-annimycin, and a minor amount of the isomer, 4-E-annimycin. Bioassays reveal that these compounds inhibit morphological differentiation in other Actinobacteria. The annimycin gene cluster encoding a type 1 polyketide synthase was identified and verified through disruption studies. This study underscores the importance of the bldA gene in regulating the expression of cryptic biosynthetic genes., (Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Microbially derived natural products are major sources of antibiotics and other medicines, but discovering new antibiotic scaffolds and increasing the chemical diversity of existing ones are formidable challenges. We have designed a screen to exploit the self-protection mechanism of antibiotic producers to enrich microbial libraries for producers of selected antibiotic scaffolds. Using resistance as a discriminating criterion we increased the discovery rate of producers of both glycopeptide and ansamycin antibacterial compounds by several orders of magnitude in comparison with historical hit rates. Applying a phylogeny-based screening filter for biosynthetic genes enabled the binning of producers of distinct scaffolds and resulted in the discovery of a glycopeptide antibacterial compound, pekiskomycin, with an unusual peptide scaffold. This strategy provides a means to readily sample the chemical diversity available in microbes and offers an efficient strategy for rapid discovery of microbial natural products and their associated biosynthetic enzymes.