Genetic analysis of nonribosomal peptide synthesis genes (NRPSs) in natural ‎product biosynthesis of the cyanobacterial strains of Lavasan Lake

Introduction: Cyanobacteria are regarded as good candidates for natural pruduct discovery, with applications in ‎pharmaceuticals industry. The majority of bioactive metabolites have either been polyketides, non-ribosomal ‎peptides, or a hybrid of the two. Despite of several worldwide studies on prevalence of NRPSs, none of them ‎included Iranian cyanobacteria of Lavasan Lake. Therefore, the aim of this study was to show that the presence of ‎these genes correlates with natural product synthesis. ‎Materials and methods:‎‏ ‏In this study, ten cultured fresh water cyanobacteria strains of the Lavasan Lake were ‎identified based on the sequence of 16SrRNA gene. In order to phylogenetic analysis the genes responsible for the ‎production of secondary metabolites, a NRPS PCR was conducted. Bioinformatics software tools were used in ‎order to prediction of peptide compound, amino acid activated and the signature sequences by a specific unknown ‎NRPS A module. Antibiogram bioassays were conducted to detect the presence of antimicrobial effects. Lastly, ‎studied strains have been deposited at the Cyanobacteria Culture Collection (CCC) of herbarium ALBORZ at the ‎Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University, Teheran.‎Results: the results showed that NRPS genes are presence in all strains. Morover bioinformatics analysis confirmed ‎the type of natural compound, signature sequences and predicted amino acid. In clusterimg of NRPS protein ‎sequences, there was no clear phylogenetic correlation between adenylation domains and activated amino acid and ‎this result emphasize the variety of adenylation domains. Morover the results of antibiogram bioassays showed ‎that there are positive correlation between the presents of those genes and antimicrobial activity.‎Discussion and conclusion: Sequence analysis indicates the enzymes encoded by these genes may be responsible ‎for the production of different secondary metabolites, such as antibiotics. The presented results prove that fresh ‎water cyanobacterial of Iran are a promising source to yield chemical and pharmaceutical interesting compounds.‎