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Activation And Characterization Of A Cryptic Polycyclic Tetramate Macrolactam Biosynthetic Gene Cluster, Yunzi Luo, Hua Huang, Jing Liang, Meng Wang, Lu Lu, Zengyi Shao, Ryan E. Cobb, Huimin Zhao

Zengyi Shao

Polycyclic tetramate macrolactams (PTMs) are a widely distributed class of natural products with important biological activities. However, many of these PTMs have not been characterized. Here we apply a plug-and-play synthetic biology strategy to activate a cryptic PTM biosynthetic gene cluster SGR810-815 from Streptomyces griseus and discover three new PTMs. This gene cluster is highly conserved in phylogenetically diverse bacterial strains and contains an unusual hybrid polyketide synthase-nonribosomal peptide synthetase, which resembles iterative polyketide synthases known in fungi. To further characterize this gene cluster, we use the same synthetic biology approach to create a series of gene deletion constructs and …