An Update on Molecular Tools for Genetic Engineering of Actinomycetes—The Source of Important Antibiotics and Other Valuable Compounds

Mitousis, Lena; Thoma, Yvonne; Musiol-Kroll, Ewa M.

doi:10.3390/antibiotics9080494

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An Update on Molecular Tools for Genetic Engineering of Actinomycetes—The Source of Important Antibiotics and Other Valuable Compounds

Lena Mitousis

Yvonne Thoma

and

Ewa M. Musiol-Kroll

Interfaculty Institute for Microbiology and Infection Medicine Tübingen (IMIT), Microbiology/Biotechnology, University of Tübingen, Auf der Morgenstelle 28, 72076 Tübingen, Germany

Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.

Antibiotics 2020, 9(8), 494; https://doi.org/10.3390/antibiotics9080494

Received: 19 July 2020 / Revised: 6 August 2020 / Accepted: 7 August 2020 / Published: 8 August 2020

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Novel Antibiotics from Actinomycetes)

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Abstract

The first antibiotic-producing actinomycete (Streptomyces antibioticus) was described by Waksman and Woodruff in 1940. This discovery initiated the “actinomycetes era”, in which several species were identified and demonstrated to be a great source of bioactive compounds. However, the remarkable group of microorganisms and their potential for the production of bioactive agents were only partially exploited. This is caused by the fact that the growth of many actinomycetes cannot be reproduced on artificial media at laboratory conditions. In addition, sequencing, genome mining and bioactivity screening disclosed that numerous biosynthetic gene clusters (BGCs), encoded in actinomycetes genomes are not expressed and thus, the respective potential products remain uncharacterized. Therefore, a lot of effort was put into the development of technologies that facilitate the access to actinomycetes genomes and activation of their biosynthetic pathways. In this review, we mainly focus on molecular tools and methods for genetic engineering of actinomycetes that have emerged in the field in the past five years (2015–2020). In addition, we highlight examples of successful application of the recently developed technologies in genetic engineering of actinomycetes for activation and/or improvement of the biosynthesis of secondary metabolites. View Full-Text

Keywords: actinomycetes; natural products; synthetic biology; genetic engineering; tools; improvement

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Mitousis, L.; Thoma, Y.; Musiol-Kroll, E.M. An Update on Molecular Tools for Genetic Engineering of Actinomycetes—The Source of Important Antibiotics and Other Valuable Compounds. Antibiotics 2020, 9, 494. https://doi.org/10.3390/antibiotics9080494

AMA Style

Mitousis L, Thoma Y, Musiol-Kroll EM. An Update on Molecular Tools for Genetic Engineering of Actinomycetes—The Source of Important Antibiotics and Other Valuable Compounds. Antibiotics. 2020; 9(8):494. https://doi.org/10.3390/antibiotics9080494

Chicago/Turabian Style

Mitousis, Lena, Yvonne Thoma, and Ewa M. Musiol-Kroll. 2020. "An Update on Molecular Tools for Genetic Engineering of Actinomycetes—The Source of Important Antibiotics and Other Valuable Compounds" Antibiotics 9, no. 8: 494. https://doi.org/10.3390/antibiotics9080494

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An Update on Molecular Tools for Genetic Engineering of Actinomycetes—The Source of Important Antibiotics and Other Valuable Compounds

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