Widespread Occurrence and Genomic Context of Unusually Small Polyketide Synthase Genes in Microbial Consortia Associated with Marine Sponges.
From: Research Center for Infectious Diseases, University of Würzburg, Röntgenring 11, 97070 Würzburg, Germany.
Applied and environmental microbiology
- Publish Date: Apr 2007
- ISSN: 0099-2240
- Volume: 73
- Issue: 7
- Pages: 2144-55
- Medium: Print
- Language: English
- Citation (JAMA): Fieseler Lars, Hentschel Ute, Grozdanov Lubomir, et al. Widespread Occurrence and Genomic Context of Unusually Small Polyketide Synthase Genes in Microbial Consortia Associated with Marine Sponges.. Appl. Environ. Microbiol. Apr 2007;73:2144-55
Abstract
Numerous marine sponges harbor enormous amounts of as-yet-uncultivated bacteria in their tissues. There is increasing evidence that these symbionts play an important role in the synthesis of protective metabolites, many of which are of great pharmacological interest. In this study, genes for the biosynthesis of polyketides, one of the most important classes of bioactive natural products, were systematically investigated in 20 demosponge species from different oceans. Unexpectedly, the sponge metagenomes were dominated by a ubiquitously present, evolutionarily distinct, and highly sponge-specific group of polyketide synthases (PKSs). Open reading frames resembling animal fatty acid genes were found on three corresponding DNA regions isolated from the metagenomes of Theonella swinhoei and Aplysina aerophoba. Their architecture suggests that methyl-branched fatty acids are the metabolic product. According to a phylogenetic analysis of housekeeping genes, at least one of the PKSs belongs to a bacterium of the Deinococcus-Thermus phylum. The results provide new insights into the chemistry of sponge symbionts and allow inference of a detailed phylogeny of the diverse functional PKS types present in sponge metagenomes. Based on these qualitative and quantitative data, we propose a significantly simplified strategy for the targeted isolation of biomedically relevant PKS genes from complex sponge-symbiont associations.
Mesh Headings (Keywords): Animals, Bacteria, Genome, Bacterial, Phylogeny, Polyketide Synthases, Porifera, Symbiosis, Variation (Genetics), Water Microbiology
Check for Full Text / PubMed Unique Identifier (PMID): 17293531
This abstract is part of PubMed, a service of the U.S. National Library of Medicine. PubMed includes more than 17 million citations from MEDLINE and other life science journals for biomedical articles. See Copyright and Disclaimers.
Linked medical terms appearing on this page are added by Healia to help readers find more information and are not part of the original PubMed document.
The data herein was last updated on July 8th, 2008 and may not reflect the most current and accurate data available from NLM.