Improvement of natamycin production in an industrial strain by heterologous expression of afsRScla global regulatory genes

Abstract:

The afsRScla global regulatory genes from Streptomyces clavuligerus activate the production of two antibiotics in Streptomyces lividans. In this study, we gained an increase of 38% in the production of natamycin (3.56 g/L) in an industrial strain Streptomyces gilvosporeus TZ1401 through the integration of pHL851 that bears the afsRScla global regulatory genes into its genome. We discovered by quantitive real-time reverse transcription PCR (qRT-PCR) that the expression of 6 genes of the natamycin biosynthetic gene cluster were improved from 1.9 to 2.7 times. This suggests that afsRScla improve the production of natamycin through increased transcription. This study provides a good example for applying afsRScla in high yield breeding of industrial antibiotic producers.