title: Combinatorial polyketide biosynthesis by de novo design and rearrangement of modular polyketide synthase genes.
abstract: Type I polyketide synthase (PKS) genes consist of modules approximately 3-6 kb long, which encode the structures of 2-carbon units in polyketide products. Alteration or replacement of individual PKS modules can lead to the biosynthesis of 'unnatural' natural products but existing techniques for this are time consuming. Here we describe a generic approach to the design of synthetic PKS genes where facile cassette assembly and interchange of modules and domains are facilitated by a repeated set of flanking restriction sites. To test the feasibility of this approach, we synthesized 14 modules from eight PKS clusters and associated them in 154 bimodular combinations spanning over 1.5-million bp of novel PKS gene sequences. Nearly half the combinations successfully mediated the biosynthesis of a polyketide in Escherichia coli, and all individual modules participated in productive bimodular combinations. This work provides a truly combinatorial approach for the production of polyketides.
authors.affiliation: Kosan Biosciences, Inc., 3832 Bay Center Place, Hayward, California 94545, USA.
authors.forename: Hugo G
authors.initials: HG
authors.lastname: Menzella
authors.forename: Ralph
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Reid
authors.forename: John R
authors.initials: JR
authors.lastname: Carney
authors.forename: Sunil S
authors.initials: SS
authors.lastname: Chandran
authors.forename: Sarah J
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: Reisinger
authors.forename: Kedar G
authors.initials: KG
authors.lastname: Patel
authors.forename: David A
authors.initials: DA
authors.lastname: Hopwood
authors.forename: Daniel V
authors.initials: DV
authors.lastname: Santi
mesh_terms: D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D001709:Biotechnology / Q000379:methods*; D020650:Combinatorial Chemistry Techniques; D004926:Escherichia coli / Q000378:metabolism; D005818:Genetic Engineering / Q000379:methods*; D007783:Lactones / Q000737:chemistry; D018942:Macrolides / Q000737:chemistry; D008956:Models, Chemical; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D010957:Plasmids / Q000378:metabolism; D048630:Polyketide Synthases / Q000096:biosynthesis / Q000737:chemistry*; D015202:Protein Engineering / Q000379:methods*; D017434:Protein Structure, Tertiary; D017386:Sequence Homology, Amino Acid
chemical_list: D007783:Lactones; D018942:Macrolides; D048630:Polyketide Synthases