Natural Product Gene Clusters in the Filamentous Nostocales Cyanobacterium HT-58-2

Metabolic pathway gene clusters in filamentous fungi.

Clusters of functionally related genes are a general feature of prokaryotic gene organization but are much less prevalent in eukaryotes. The discovery that genes for certain types of metabolic pathways are clustered in filamentous fungi is relatively recent. Only 8 years ago in a discussion of the proline utilization pathway genes, Hull et al. (1989) commented that ‘‘The organization and regula...

Aphanizomenon gracile (Nostocales), a cylindrospermopsin-producing cyanobacterium in Polish lakes

The cyanobacterial cytotoxin cylindrospermopsin (CYN) has become increasingly common in fresh waters worldwide. It was originally isolated from Cylindrospermopsis raciborskii in Australia; however, in European waters, its occurrence is associated with other cyanobacterial species belonging to the genera Aphanizomenon and Anabaena. Moreover, cylindrospermopsin-producing strains of widely distrib...

Cloning large natural product gene clusters from the environment: Piecing environmental DNA gene clusters back together with TAR

A single gram of soil can contain thousands of unique bacterial species, of which only a small fraction is regularly cultured in the laboratory. Although the fermentation of cultured microorganisms has provided access to numerous bioactive secondary metabolites, with these same methods it is not possible to characterize the natural products encoded by the uncultured majority. The heterologous e...

Accurate prediction of secondary metabolite gene clusters in filamentous fungi.

Biosynthetic pathways of secondary metabolites from fungi are currently subject to an intense effort to elucidate the genetic basis for these compounds due to their large potential within pharmaceutics and synthetic biochemistry. The preferred method is methodical gene deletions to identify supporting enzymes for key synthases one cluster at a time. In this study, we design and apply a DNA expr...

Circadian Rhythm of Nitrogenase Gene Expression in the Diazotrophic Filamentous Nonheterocystous Cyanobacterium Trichodesmium sp. Strain IMS