Engineered biosynthesis of the antiparasitic agent frenolicin B and rationally designed analogs in a heterologous host

• Published in: Journal of antibiotics Vol. 64; no. 12; pp. 759 - 762
• Main Authors: Fitzgerald, Jay T, Ridley, Christian P, Khosla, Chaitan
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 01.12.2011; Japan Antibiotics Research Assoc; Nature Publishing Group
• Subjects: 631/326/22/1294; 631/326/41; 631/92/60; Animals; Antiparasitic agents; Antiparasitic Agents - chemistry; Antiparasitic Agents - metabolism; Antiparasitic Agents - pharmacology; Bacteriology; Biomedical and Life Sciences; Bioorganic Chemistry; Biosynthesis; Biotechnology & Applied Microbiology; Cell Line; Cloning, Molecular; Genetic Engineering - methods; Humans; Immunology; Life Sciences; Life Sciences & Biomedicine; Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy; Medicinal Chemistry; Microbiology; Naphthoquinones - chemistry; Naphthoquinones - metabolism; Naphthoquinones - pharmacology; Organic Chemistry; original-article; Pharmacology & Pharmacy; Science & Technology; Streptomyces coelicolor - enzymology; Streptomyces coelicolor - genetics; Streptomyces coelicolor - metabolism; Toxoplasma - drug effects; Toxoplasma - growth & development; antiparasitic antibiotic; engineering; frenolicin; polyketide; biosynthesis; ANTICOCCIDIAL ACTIVITY; ANTIBIOTICS; ACTINORHODIN; POLYKETIDE SYNTHASES; AROMATIC POLYKETIDES; STREPTOMYCES-COELICOLOR A3; GENE-CLUSTER; CLONING; NUCLEOTIDE-SEQUENCE; SEMISYNTHETIC ANALOGS
• ISSN: 0021-8820; 1881-1469
• DOI: 10.1038/ja.2011.86

The polyketide antibiotic frenolicin B harbors a biosynthetically intriguing benzoisochromanequinone core, and has been shown to exhibit promising antiparasitic activity against Eimeria tenella . To facilitate further exploration of its chemistry and biology, we constructed a biosynthetic route to frenolicin B in the heterologous host Streptomyces coelicolor CH999, despite the absence of key enzymes in the identified frenolicin gene cluster. Together with our understanding of the underlying polyketide biosynthetic pathway, this heterologous production system was exploited to produce analogs modified at the C15 position. Both the natural product and these analogs inhibited the growth of Toxoplasma gondii in a manner that reveals sensitivity to the length of the C15 substituent. The ability to construct a functional biosynthetic pathway, despite a lack of genetic information, illustrates the feasibility of a modular approach to engineering medicinally relevant polyketide products.