Life Sciences Commons^™

Genetically Induced Production Of Secondary Metabolites In Bacillus Megaterium, Majie C. Foster, Jay L. Brewster, P. Matthew Joyner

Seaver College Research And Scholarly Achievement Symposium

Historically, the most important source of new antibiotic drug leads has been small organic compounds made by bacteria. Many antibiotics have been developed into pharmaceutical agents from these molecules (often called secondary metabolites) produced by soil bacteria. Bacillus species are soil bacteria known for producing various antimicrobials including gramicidin, bacitracin, surfactin, and others. Bacillus megaterium is a widely used model gram positive bacterium. Although there has been extensive research on this organism, little is known about its secondary metabolites. We hypothesized that the production of secondary metabolites in this organism could be induced by replacing promoters controlling the expression of …