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Terpene synthases are widely distributed in bacteria.

Yuuki Yamada1, Tomohisa Kuzuyama2, Mamoru Komatsu1

  • 1Laboratory of Microbial Engineering, Kitasato Institute for Life Sciences, Kitasato University, Kanagawa 252-0373, Japan;

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
|December 24, 2014
PubMed
Summary

Researchers discovered 262 potential bacterial terpene synthases using hidden Markov models (HMMs) and Pfam database searches. This led to the identification of 13 novel cyclic sesquiterpenes and diterpenes, expanding our knowledge of microbial terpene diversity.

Keywords:
bacteriaheterologous expressionterpene synthase

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Area of Science:

  • Microbial biochemistry
  • Genomics
  • Natural product discovery

Background:

  • Bacterial terpene synthases are diverse and often lack sequence similarity to known plant or fungal enzymes.
  • Most Streptomycetaceae produce geosmin, but some produce other sesquiterpenes or no terpenes.
  • Identifying bacterial terpene synthases and their products is challenging due to low sequence homology.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To identify novel bacterial terpene synthases using an enhanced hidden Markov model (HMM) approach.
  • To characterize the biochemical function of newly identified terpene synthases.
  • To discover and determine the structures of previously unknown bacterial terpenes.

Main Methods:

  • Utilized an enhanced HMM parameter set trained on 140 bacterial terpene synthase sequences.
  • Performed a Pfam search across millions of predicted bacterial proteins from public and in-house databases.
  • Expressed presumptive terpene synthase genes in a heterologous Streptomyces host for functional analysis and spectroscopic identification of products.

Main Results:

  • Identified 262 presumptive bacterial terpene synthases.
  • Determined the biochemical function for a significant number of these genes.
  • Isolated and structurally elucidated 13 novel cyclic sesquiterpenes and diterpenes, alongside known terpene classes.

Conclusions:

  • The HMM-based search strategy is effective for discovering novel bacterial terpene synthases.
  • This study significantly expands the known repertoire of bacterial terpene metabolites.
  • The findings provide new insights into the evolution and diversity of terpene biosynthesis in bacteria.