Terpenoids, critical components of human medicine, are the largest family natural products. Fungi an important source terpenoids, but many corresponding biosynthetic gene clusters (BGCs) silent in laboratory conditions. Strategies such as homologous activation and heterologous expression were usually used to active a single cluster, making them low efficiency. Here we developed automated high-t...

The number of bacterial species estimated to exist on Earth has increased dramatically in recent years. This newly recognized species diversity has raised the possibility that bacterial natural product biosynthetic diversity has also been significantly underestimated by previous culture-based studies. Here, we compare 454-pyrosequenced nonribosomal peptide adenylation domain, type I polyketide ...

Penicillium roqueforti is a fungal starter culture used for the production of blue-veined cheeses, such as Roquefort, Gorgonzola, Stilton, Cabrales, and Danablue. During ripening, this species grows in veins cheese, forming emblematic blue-green color establishing characteristic flavor owin to its biochemical activities. P. synthesizes diverse array secondary metabolites, including well-known c...

Abstract Background A wide range of bioactive compounds is produced by enzymes and enzymatic complexes encoded in biosynthetic gene clusters (BGCs). These BGCs can be identified functionally annotated based on their DNA sequence. Candidates for further research development may prioritized properties such as functional annotation, (dis)similarity to known BGCs, bioactivity assays. Production the...

BACKGROUND Heterologous expression of bacterial biosynthetic gene clusters is currently an indispensable tool for characterizing biosynthetic pathways. Development of an effective, general heterologous expression system that can be applied to bioprospecting from metagenomic DNA will enable the discovery of a wealth of new natural products. METHODOLOGY We have developed a new Escherichia coli-...