BACKGROUND Direct cloning combined with heterologous expression of a secondary metabolite biosynthetic gene cluster has become a useful strategy for production improvement and pathway modification of potentially valuable natural products present at minute quantities in original isolates of actinomycetes. However, precise cloning and efficient overexpression of an entire biosynthetic gene cluste...

BACKGROUND Actinomycete genome sequencing has disclosed a large number of cryptic secondary metabolite biosynthetic gene clusters. However, their unavailable or limited expression severely hampered the discovery of bioactive compounds. The whiB-like (wbl) regulatory genes play important roles in morphological differentiation as well as secondary metabolism; and hence the wblA so gene was probed...

As the 20th century ended, Fusarium mycotoxicology entered the age of genomics. With complete genomes of Fusarium graminearum and F. verticillioides and several Fusarium gene expression sequence databases on hand, researchers worldwide are working at a rapid pace to identify mycotoxin biosynthetic and regulatory genes. Seven classes of mycotoxin biosynthetic genes or gene clusters have been ide...

Specialised metabolites from microbial sources are well-known for their wide range of biomedical applications, particularly as antibiotics. When mining paired genomic and metabolomic data sets novel specialised metabolites, establishing links between Biosynthetic Gene Clusters (BGCs) represents a promising way finding such chemistry. However, due to the lack detailed biosynthetic knowledge majo...

The clavine alkaloids produced by the fungi of the Aspergillaceae and Arthrodermatacea families differ from the ergot alkaloids produced by Claviceps and Neotyphodium. The clavine alkaloids lack the extensive peptide chain modifications that occur in lysergic acid derived ergot alkaloids. Both clavine and ergot alkaloids arise from the condensation of tryptophan and dimethylallylpyrophosphate b...

Here, we report the draft genome sequence of Micromonospora sp. DSW705 (=NBRC 110037), a producer of antitumor cyclic depsipeptides rakicidins A and B, together with the features of this strain and generation, annotation, and analysis of the genome sequence. The 6.8 Mb genome of Micromonospora sp. DSW705 encodes 6,219 putative ORFs, of which 4,846 are assigned with COG categories. The genome ha...