The present invention provides a system for producing and modifying natural products produced by a large group of bacteria for the purpose of drug discovery, development and production. The method of the invention transfers the ability to produce a secondary metabolite from an actinomycete that is the original producer of the natural product, to a different production host that has desirable characteristics. The system involves the construction of a segment of the chromosome of the original producer in an artificial chromosome that can be stably maintained in a suitable production host. The present invention relates to recombinant DNA vectors useful for shuttling the genetic information necessary to synthesize a given natural product between a donor organism and a production host. The methods of the invention are useful in improving the yield, the purification process and for structural modification of a natural product.
展开▼
