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Mining elements of siderophore chirality encoded in microbial genomes
Alison Butler1, Aneta M Jelowicki1, Haley A Ogasawara1
1Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA, USA.
FEBS Letters
|November 12, 2022
Summary
Bacteria use siderophores to acquire iron. New research explores peptidic siderophores and their chiral iron complexes, revealing limitations in current genome mining tools for predicting these essential microbial compounds.
Area of Science:
- Microbiology
- Biochemistry
- Genomics
Background:
- Iron is essential for bacterial growth, necessitating efficient iron acquisition strategies.
- Siderophores are microbial metabolites that chelate and sequester iron(III), with peptidic siderophores being of particular interest.
- Genome mining tools like antiSMASH aid in discovering novel secondary metabolites, including siderophores.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the potential of genome mining tools in predicting peptidic siderophores.
- To explore the combinatoric suite of triscatechol siderophores with a triserine-ester backbone.
- To understand the stereospecific coordination chemistry of chiral iron(III)-siderophore complexes.
Main Methods:
- Utilized genome mining tools (e.g., antiSMASH) to predict peptidic siderophore structures.
- Analyzed the predicted siderophore structures, focusing on cationic amino acid variations (Arg, Lys, Orn).
- Investigated the formation and properties of chiral iron(III)-siderophore complexes.
Main Results:
- Genome mining tools predicted siderophores containing l/d Arg, l/d Lys, and l Orn, but not d Orn.
- The d Orn siderophore was identified unexpectedly, highlighting current prediction limitations.
- The study revealed a full combinatoric suite of siderophores forming chiral iron(III) complexes.
Conclusions:
- Current genome mining tools have limitations in predicting the full diversity of peptidic siderophores.
- The stereospecific coordination chemistry of microbial siderophores is encoded within genomes.
- Further research is needed to determine if iron acquisition pathways are stereospecific for chiral siderophore complexes.
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