An Update on Molecular Tools for Genetic Engineering of Actinomycetes-The Source of Important Antibiotics and Other Valuable Compounds

• Published in: Antibiotics (Basel) Vol. 9; no. 8; p. 494
• Main Authors: Mitousis, Lena, Thoma, Yvonne, Musiol-Kroll, Ewa M
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Switzerland MDPI AG 08.08.2020; MDPI
• Subjects: Actinomycetes; Activation; Antibiotics; Binding sites; Bioactive compounds; Biological activity; Biosynthesis; Cloning; CRISPR; Deoxyribonucleic acid; DNA; Gene clusters; Gene sequencing; Genes; Genetic aspects; Genetic engineering; Genomes; improvement; Metabolites; Methods; Microorganisms; Natural products; Plasmids; Review; Secondary metabolites; Synthetic biology; Germany; natural products; synthetic biology; actinomycetes; improvement; tools; genetic engineering
• ISSN: 2079-6382; 2079-6382
• DOI: 10.3390/antibiotics9080494

The first antibiotic-producing actinomycete ( ) was described by Waksman and Woodruff in 1940. This discovery initiated the "actinomycetes era", in which several species were identified and demonstrated to be a great source of bioactive compounds. However, the remarkable group of microorganisms and their potential for the production of bioactive agents were only partially exploited. This is caused by the fact that the growth of many actinomycetes cannot be reproduced on artificial media at laboratory conditions. In addition, sequencing, genome mining and bioactivity screening disclosed that numerous biosynthetic gene clusters (BGCs), encoded in actinomycetes genomes are not expressed and thus, the respective potential products remain uncharacterized. Therefore, a lot of effort was put into the development of technologies that facilitate the access to actinomycetes genomes and activation of their biosynthetic pathways. In this review, we mainly focus on molecular tools and methods for genetic engineering of actinomycetes that have emerged in the field in the past five years (2015-2020). In addition, we highlight examples of successful application of the recently developed technologies in genetic engineering of actinomycetes for activation and/or improvement of the biosynthesis of secondary metabolites.