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Cultivated bacteria such as actinomycetes are a highly useful source of biomedically important natural products. However, such 'talented' producers represent only a minute fraction of the entire, mostly uncultivated, prokaryotic diversity. The uncultured majority is generally perceived as a large, untapped resource of new drug candidates, but so far it is unknown whether taxa containing talented bacteria indeed exist. Here we report the single-cell- and metagenomics-based discovery of such producers. Two phylotypes of the candidate genus 'Entotheonella' with genomes of greater than 9 megabases and multiple, distinct biosynthetic gene clusters co-inhabit the chemically and microbially rich marine sponge Theonella swinhoei. Almost all bioactive polyketides and peptides known from this animal were attributed to a single phylotype. 'Entotheonella' spp. are widely distributed in sponges and belong to an environmental taxon proposed here as candidate phylum 'Tectomicrobia'. The pronounced bioactivities and chemical uniqueness of 'Entotheonella' compounds provide significant opportunities for ecological studies and drug discovery.

It is held as a paradigm that ribosomally synthesized peptides and proteins contain only l-amino acids. We demonstrate a ribosomal origin of the marine sponge-derived polytheonamides, exceptionally potent, giant natural-product toxins. Isolation of the biosynthetic genes from the sponge metagenome revealed a bacterial gene architecture. Only six candidate enzymes were identified for 48 posttranslational modifications, including 18 epimerizations and 17 methylations of nonactivated carbon centers. Three enzymes were functionally validated, which showed that a radical S-adenosylmethionine enzyme is responsible for the unidirectional epimerization of multiple and different amino acids. Collectively, these complex alterations create toxins that function as unimolecular minimalistic ion channels with near-femtomolar activity. This study broadens the biosynthetic scope of ribosomal systems and creates new opportunities for peptide and protein bioengineering.

Corallopyronin A is a myxobacterial compound with potent antibacterial activity. Feeding experiments with labelled precursors resulted in the deduction of all biosynthetic building blocks for corallopyronin A and revealed an unusual feature of this metabolite: its biosynthesis from two chains, one solely PKS-derived and the other NRPS/PKS-derived. The starter molecule is believed to be carbonic acid or its monomethyl ester. The putative corallopyronin A biosynthetic gene cluster is a trans-AT-type mixed PKS/NRPS gene cluster, containing a beta-branching cassette. Striking features of this gene cluster are a NRPS-like adenylation domain that is part of a PKS-type module and is believed to be responsible for glycine incorporation, as well as split modules with individual domains occurring on different genes. It is suggested that CorB is a trans-acting ketosynthase and it is proposed that it catalyses the Claisen condensation responsible for the interconnection of the two chains. Additionally, the stereochemistry of corallopyronin A was deduced by a combination of a modified Mosher's method and ozonolysis with subsequent chiral GC analyses.

Many marine sponges harbor massive consortia of symbiotic bacteria belonging to diverse phyla. Sponges are also an unusually rich source of biologically active natural products, and evidence is accumulating that these compounds might often be synthesized by the symbionts. Since the study of sponge-associated bacteria is generally hampered by very low cultivation rates, cultivation-independent, metagenomic methods have recently been applied to sponges. These methods allow for the isolation of biosynthetic gene clusters that can ultimately be exploited to develop sustainable natural product sources by heterologous expression. However, general challenges encountered in sponge metagenomic research are the poor quality of the isolated DNA with respect to size and yield, the difficulty to identify genes of interest among numerous homologs, insufficient clone numbers in metagenomic libraries, and time-consuming screening procedures to identify and isolate rare positive clones. Here, we give an overview of methods that address these problems and can be used to streamline isolation of biosynthetic and other genes of interest.

There is increasing evidence that uncultivated bacterial symbionts are the true producers of numerous bioactive compounds isolated from marine sponges. The localization and heterologous expression of biosynthetic genes could clarify this issue and provide sustainable supplies for a wide range of pharmaceuticals. However, identification of genes in the usually highly complex symbiont communities remains a challenging task. For polyketides, one of the most important groups of sponge-derived drug candidates, we have developed a general strategy that allows one to rapidly access biosynthetic gene clusters based on chemical moieties. Using this method, we targeted polyketide synthase genes from two different sponge metagenomes. We have obtained from a sponge-bacterial association a complete pathway for the rare and potent antitumor agent psymberin from Psammocinia aff. bulbosa. The data support the symbiont hypothesis and provide insights into natural product evolution in previously inaccessible bacteria.

Modular polyketide synthases (PKSs) are giant bacterial enzymes that synthesize many polyketides of therapeutic value. In contrast to PKSs that provide acyltransferase (AT) activities in cis, trans-AT PKSs lack integrated AT domains and exhibit unusual enzymatic features with poorly understood functions in polyketide assembly. This has retarded insight into the assembly of products such as mupirocin, leinamycin and bryostatin 1. We show that trans-AT PKSs evolved in a fundamentally different fashion from cis-AT systems, through horizontal recruitment and assembly of substrate-specific ketosynthase (KS) domains. The insights obtained from analysis of these KS mosaics will facilitate both the discovery of novel polyketides by genome mining, as we demonstrate for the thailandamides of Burkholderia thailandensis, and the extraction of chemical information from short trans-AT PCR products, as we show using metagenomic DNA of marine sponges. Our data also suggest new strategies for dissecting polyketide biosynthetic pathways and engineering polyketide assembly.

Vitamin B6 represents a highly important group of compounds ubiquitous in all living organisms. It has been demonstrated to alleviate oxidative stress and in its phosphorylated form participates as a cofactor in >100 biochemical reactions. By means of a genetic approach, we have identified a novel mutant, rsr4-1 (for reduced sugar response), with aberrant root and leaf growth that requires supplementation of vitamin B6 for normal development. Cloning of the mutated gene revealed that rsr4-1 carries a point mutation in a member of the PDX1/SOR1/SNZ (for Pyridoxine biosynthesis protein 1/Singlet oxygen resistant 1/Snooze) family that leads to reduced vitamin B6 content. Consequently, metabolism is broadly altered, mainly affecting amino acid, raffinose, and shikimate contents and trichloroacetic acid cycle constituents. Yeast two-hybrid and pull-down analyses showed that Arabidopsis thaliana PDX1 proteins can form oligomers. Interestingly, the mutant form of PDX1 has severely reduced capability to oligomerize, potentially suggesting that oligomerization is important for function. In summary, our results demonstrate the critical function of the PDX1 protein family for metabolism, whole-plant development, and vitamin B6 biosynthesis in higher plants.

We studied the metabolism of radioactively labeled safingol (l-threo-dihydrosphingosine) in primary cultured neurons, B104 neuroblastoma cells, and Swiss 3T3 fibroblasts, and compared it to that of its natural stereoisomer d-erythro-dihydrosphingosine. Both sphingoid bases are used as biosynthetic precursors for complex sphingolipids, albeit to different rates. Whereas a considerable amount of the natural sphingoid base is also directed to the catabolic pathway (20-66%, cell type dependent), only a minor amount of the nonnatural safingol is subjected to catabolic cleavage, most of it being N-acylated to the respective stereochemical variant of dihydroceramide. Interestingly, N-acylation of safingol to l-threo-dihydroceramide is less sensitive to fumonisin B1 than the formation of the natural d-erythro-dihydroceramide. In addition, safingol-derived l-threo-dihydroceramide, unlike its physiologic counterpart, is not desaturated. Most of it either accumulates in the cells (up to 50%) or is used as a biosynthetic precursor of the respective dihydrosphingomyelin (up to 45%). About 5% is, however, glucosylated and channeled into the glycosphingolipid biosynthetic pathway. Our results demonstrate that, despite its nonnatural stereochemistry, safingol is recognized and metabolized preferentially by enzymes of the sphingolipid biosynthetic pathway. Furthermore, our data suggest that the cytotoxic potential of safingol is reduced rather than enhanced via its metabolic conversion.