As part of the iimena project, we are investigating the genomes, as well as the metabolite profiles of many actinomycete strains.
Despite the well-known Streptomyces, there are other underexplored genera in the phylum of Actinobacteria that are very promising on producing new, complex specialized metabolites. Through a combined genetic and metabolite approach, we investigated a rare Kutzneria strain that proved to produce two novel macrolides, epemicins A and B.
The work, that is now published in ACS Chemical Biology, was a collaboration between the chemistry team of the iimena project, that isolated and structurally elucidated the new compounds, as well as the genome mining and engineering team, that managed to link epemicins to the gene cluster responsible for their biosynthesis.
Link to the paper:
Discovery and Characterization of Epemicins A and B, New 30-Membered Macrolides from Kutzneria sp. CA-103260. ACS Chem. Biol. 2021. DOI:10.1021/acschembio.1c00318
Link to the genome announcement:
Complete Genome Sequence of the Rare Actinobacterium Kutzneria sp. Strain CA-103260