An Environmental DNA-Derived Type II Polyketide Biosynthetic Pathway Encodes the Biosynthesis of the Pentacyclic Polyketide Erdacin

摘要

It is now well established that environmental samples contain a significantly more diverse collection of bacteria than that which is readily grown in the laboratory. Large insert clone libraries of DNA extracted directly from environmental samples (environmental DNA, eDNA) provide a means to retrieve the natural product biosynthetic gene clusters found in the genomes of these previously inaccessible bacteria. One of the challenges associated with the discovery of new molecules from large eDNA libraries has been the identification of clones containing intact gene clusters that can be used to produce small molecules in heterologous hosts.