Biomolecular-chemical screening: a novel screening approach for the discovery of biologically active secondary metabolites. I. Screening strategy and validation.
Chemical screening using thin-layer chromatography and various staining reagents offers the opportunity to visualize an almost complete picture of a microbial secondary metabolite pattern (metabolic finger-print). A thorough application of this strategy resulted in a number of biologically active new secondary metabolites, although the screening strategy is per se not correlated to any biological activity. In the present paper we report on a novel approach called biomolecular-chemical screening which combines the chemical screening strategy with binding studies of biological relevance. Making use of thin-layer chromatography (TLC) and subsequent staining, biomolecular-chemical screening allows to examine binding properties of low molecular weight metabolites to certain bio-macromolecules. The screening strategy itself, as well as independent validation of the results using DNA as selected bio-macromolecule are presented. The biomolecular-chemical screening method is useful to screen binding behaviour towards DNA of both, pure metabolites by one-dimensional TLC, and crude extracts by two-dimensional TLC. Investigation of pure secondary metabolites as well as screening of crude microbial extracts and new secondary metabolites obtained with this screening strategy are presented in accompanying papers.
Maier
A
A
Hans-Knöll-Institut für Naturstoff-Forschung e.V., Jena, Germany.
Maul
C
C
Zerlin
M
M
Sattler
I
I
Grabley
S
S
Thiericke
R
R
D001419:Bacteria / Q000378:metabolism*; D002855:Chromatography, Thin Layer; D002942:Circular Dichroism; D004247:DNA / Q000378:metabolism*
D004247:DNA