Genome Editing in Streptomyces

Abstract

Streptomyces are Gram-positive, filamentous bacteria belonging to the group actinomycetes. This bacterium is important to the modern industrial world because of the presence of 20-50 biosynthetic gene clusters (BGCs). BGCs contain the genes for the production of industrially important natural products (NP), which includes antibiotics, anti-tumor drugs, anti-depressants, etc., naturally originated from this microorganism. Strain improvement is required to enhance the production of these NP in Streptomyces. Different methods have been used to enhance NP production and strain improvement. In this chapter, we will be discussing strain improvement of Streptomyces species by different genome editing tools. The information, which is put together, includes the basic techniques used for genome editing to the most advanced CRISPR/Cas system associated genome editing in Streptomyces (PCR targeting system, Cre-loxP recombination system, I SceI meganuclease promoted recombination system and CRISPR/Cas system). The authors have discussed about multiplex automated genome editing (MAGE) tool associated with CRISPR/Cas system.