title: The diversity of polyketide synthase genes from sugarcane-derived fungi.
abstract: The chemical ecology and biotechnological potential of metabolites from endophytic and rhizosphere fungi are receiving much attention. A collection of 17 sugarcane-derived fungi were identified and assessed by PCR for the presence of polyketide synthase (PKS) genes. The fungi were all various genera of ascomycetes, the genomes of which encoded 36 putative PKS sequences, 26 shared sequence homology with β-ketoacyl synthase domains, while 10 sequences showed homology to known fungal C-methyltransferase domains. A neighbour-joining phylogenetic analysis of the translated sequences could group the domains into previously established chemistry-based clades that represented non-reducing, partially reducing and highly reducing fungal PKSs. We observed that, in many cases, the membership of each clade also reflected the taxonomy of the fungal isolates. The functional assignment of the domains was further confirmed by in silico secondary and tertiary protein structure predictions. This genome mining study reveals, for the first time, the genetic potential of specific taxonomic groups of sugarcane-derived fungi to produce specific types of polyketides. Future work will focus on isolating these compounds with a view to understanding their chemical ecology and likely biotechnological potential.
authors.affiliation: Instituto de Ciências Biomédicas (ICB), Universidade de São Paulo, CEP 05508-900, São Paulo, Brazil.
authors.forename: Juan Diego
authors.initials: JD
authors.lastname: Rojas
authors.forename: Lara Durães
authors.initials: LD
authors.lastname: Sette
authors.forename: Welington L
authors.initials: WL
authors.lastname: de Araujo
authors.forename: Mateus Schreiner Garcez
authors.initials: MS
authors.lastname: Lopes
authors.forename: Luiziana Ferreira
authors.initials: LF
authors.lastname: da Silva
authors.forename: Renata L A
authors.initials: RL
authors.lastname: Furlan
authors.forename: Gabriel
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Padilla
mesh_terms: D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D005656:Fungal Proteins / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism; D005658:Fungi / Q000145:classification / Q000201:enzymology* / Q000235:genetics / Q000302:isolation & purification; D014644:Genetic Variation; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D010802:Phylogeny; D048630:Polyketide Synthases / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism; D031786:Saccharum / Q000382:microbiology*; D016415:Sequence Alignment
chemical_list: D005656:Fungal Proteins; D048630:Polyketide Synthases